Free Willy - Morally Shmorally - Problem Solved - Don't Start - Dicktionary Corner

I'm in a really bad mood so keep out of my way until at least next year (tomorrow ;)
Getting some stuff off my chest.

Free Willy

It's called Free Will for a reason. You have Freedom to Will into existence whatever you like.

I hear you moaning like fuck about how bad this is or that is, but you never do anything, get off your arse and actually make a change. I was your crutch for years, but no more. A crutch is supposed to be a temporary assistance otherwise you can you become habituated. Frustration at your intransigence lead to anger from there to hate and finally to misery (sure I've heard that before somewhere) and that's just the effect being around you seemingly brainless, vapid fucks had on me. I'm guessing your own lives are far more miserable than that. If Ignorance Is Bliss Why Aren't You Happy?

Morally Shmorally

These days if you can get away with something then it's worth doing, or that's the way it seems.

You sit around searching for a reason for your shit life and wonder why things keep going wrong. One of my old bosses would whine like a little bitch all the time about how life wasn't fair. Well no it isn't. Good people die young and murderers can get away with their crimes until they die in some cases, but those are exceptions to the rule. Everything in your life started with you. You are reaping what you sowed and the only hiccups that aren't down to you are the random rise and fall of the tide of chance events and opportunities. While away the years bemoaning your bad luck sure, but I can see quite clearly why bad things happen to the shitehawks I've known.

The less shit hawks, still sit around moaning, trying to find explanations that involve other people, the blame is always squarely placed at someone else's feet. I've tried to make you see the reality but you're too ingrained, too obsessed. You've convinced yourself, become vested interests of someone else's hopes and dreams and forgotten your own. Decided to give up and stop trying. I feel sorry for you, or as MR T would say, I Pity The Fool...

Problem Solved

I'm here to solve problems, on the planet I mean, not here in my room typing. My careers (ok, my one career and the not literally hundreds but several different shit jobs I've had since) have been about solving problems for people. Whether they were customers of the firms or my friends. You came to me for advice but never took it and even though I know now that I should have tried to be more supportive in helping you affect the changes you KNOW you need to make, I didn't realise that at the time. So I decided after the frustration became too much to let you rot and take myself out of the poisonous atmosphere you all create. If I can't beat them, and I can't join them then I'll fuck off and find somewhere quieter, less toxic and ultimately better for me.

I've got some of the answers but you're not asking ANY of the questions...

It's not sour grapes, I told you what you wanted to hear in the past, now if you'll listen I'll tell you what you need to know. But I can't force it down your throat, events will lead you to start asking the same questions that I did or you will just perish like the rest of the unhealthy shrivelled vines in the yard.

I can't make decisions for you, but you're not making any at all. You've dehumanised others and yourself. You Are Getting What You Deserve and will continue to do so until you WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!

Don't Start Something You Can't Finish

Don't test me or try my patience because if you cross me I'll rip you to fucking shreds. I don't lose arguments, the only thing that happens to prevent me from winning you over is when you decide to change the subject or storm off because deep down you know you are in the wrong. I couldn't give a flying fuck in that case. I'm done trying to get through to you. It's a bugger being right approximately 98% of the time, it's why I have such difficulty in taking someone else's word for something, you're all even worse bullshitters than I was. You'd rather say something than nothing even if you have no basis for believing what you say is true other than that you heard it somewhere or just made it up as you went along. It comes not from experience, or wisdom but your own foolish pride. The best you could hope for is an agreement to disagree because it was NEVER about WHO is in the right or in the wrong, but WHAT is right and wrong.

I never took advantage of your situation, if you were down I was empathetic, made a bid to make you laugh by acting like a fool or generally attempted to cheer you up. If I spotted you across the room on your own, I came over and made conversation. I did what you won't, I tried... I'm no angel, never was never will be...

Oh, and when I'm wrong, I apologise.

Dicktionary Corner

to habituate (third-person singular simple present habituates, present participle habituating, simple past and past participle habituated)

1. To turn into a habit, to make habitual.

   He would eventually habituate his use of opiates.

vapid (comparative more vapid, superlative most vapid)

1. Lifeless, dull or banal.
2. Tasteless, bland, or insipid.

intransigence (plural intransigences)

1. Unwillingness to change one's views or to agree.

   The intransigence of both sides frustrated the negotiators.

2. The state of being intransigent.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh That's Better.........................................................

The Expression of Humanity

Truly Modern Humans...

We've been around for a lot longer than history will tell you but science knows. The reason is that the bones, in many cases the only evidence to persist until the present day, suggest Modern Humans. That far back however the cultural artefacts have decomposed, been recycled by the earth. Ropes, anything made of wood, basically there's nothing left. Until you get to the more recent experimentation with metals, bronze, iron etc there's not much to find unless you count preserved peat boggy bodies, high mountain frozen mummies, that kind of thing.

Tribal cultures created? Dances, Songs, Works of Art, COMMUNITY.

The revival of archaic values is well on the way if not very nearly complete.

The return of Tattooing, the popularity of Dancing, Singing, human creativity of all kinds.

At the end of History, all of these things are coming back to haunt us...

While all around the rest of the plebs carry on consuming things made out of stuff...

There isn't enough stuff left, and there are already too many things!

Quoting Terrence McKenna on our culture:-

This is something, culture is not your friend. Culture is for other people's convenience and the convenience of various institutions, churches, companies, tax collection schemes, what have you. It is not your friend. It insults you. It disempowers you. It uses and abuses you. None of us are well treated by culture.

Yet we glorify the creative potential of the individual, the rights of the individual. We understand the felt-presence of experience is what is most important. But the culture is a perversion. It fetishizes objects, creates consumer mania, it preaches endless forms of false happiness, endless forms of false understanding in the form of squirrelly religions and silly cults. It invites people to diminish themselves and dehumanize themselves by behaving like machines.

What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation.

Greatest Understatement EVER!!!

Light &
Love
Jon
X

An Open E-Letter To My Love / Burn Notice

I've removed slushy (ok even slushier) first and last paragraphs for mine and your benefits ;-)















A man is just an animal with a bigger brain.
He thinks about things nature does on instinct.
The more he thinks the less clear things become.

You've told me so many good things about me that I never knew or would ever believe unless they had come from your finger tips. I've been scared for so long to let someone get this close and wanted it at the same time just as badly. I feel like a fool in love, but I don't want to be, a fool that is.

My poor brain is bored being home.
It's running wild with thoughts of you.
And my imagination is free, it has no limits or boundaries.

It takes a ride down unlit back-roads and enters areas that it has no business being in.
Tell me when I'm being a jerk, and I'll try not to get so scared.

I don't like excuses, I like reasons... But anything else I say will just sound like an excuse or self pity, I prefer to call them reasons but they're the same thing ;)

You've opened up areas of me that were off limits to anyone else
You've made me realise what a waste I've made of opportunities in the past
You've let me see the person I always wanted to be but never had the courage

Two years ago, I was bored with life. I had cleared the debts from trying to set myself up in business 6 years before (back when I worked in Computers). By that time, with nothing to lose I wanted to run away from that nothingness. I felt desperate and lonely, I'd chosen to remove the bad influences from my life, the Boss who stole from our clients, the friends who just wanted to party but never had anything interesting to say for themselves. I felt empty, I was always chasing the Best Night Out, a repeat performance of old times. I couldn't find it, the people I met empty of any value in themselves, just shadows.

So I'd quit my job, I'd quit my friends, I had nothing. That's either the end of everything good and bad or the start of something better. For me it was the something better that I've always been after.

Slowly I rebuilt my life from the ground up, travelled, met new friends and strangers too in Spain who restored my faith in the basic kindness of people that I was convinced no longer existed. All the time in the wilderness of office work I had never dreamed I would actually feel like being important to someone again (who could feel that for me too). I'd met girls, who took my fancy and for a time there was something, possibilities... but nothing real and then you came along and turned my world upside down.

I always felt different in some way, when I was growing up. The world is such a harsh and seemingly unforgiving place. I never had the hard shell to protect me that others did, I had to create that but fake it.

Other people have their shells intact whereas mine has been at least partially destroyed, I've sought out ways to do this, to destroy the ego and prevent barriers from keeping me from the special people in my life.

Always inside was this kid who just wanted to be loved and to love, without the angst and frustrations that other people always display. I've not had much practise, I guess I'm still that kid fumbling around and making mistakes. It's why I told you I never want to be careless with your heart.

They say that "You only hurt the ones you love". I never understood that, beyond the fact that it's only those you love that you can hurt to a greater extent. They're the ones who have let you get close enough to do so, and they're the only ones who can forgive such actions. But what a burden, to let someone have that power over you. I don't want this to become one of those sick and twisted power struggles, a battle of wills or egos.

Another question I asked myself in the past. "Surely there's more to life than this?"
I know some answers to that one, I won't bore you with them now, I want you to be part of mine...

---

Burn Notice
Back to the grindstone next week hopefully. Then I can get saving up for a trip to Miami

Light &
Love
JW
x

1,010,101 Story Time

One Million, ten thousand, one hundred and one years ago I was prematurely born into the Tribe and not expected to survive. My Mother took me to the Shaman who journeyed and returned to pronounce that I would suffer but live I would and become the next Medicine man.

As a child I endured long periods of ill health, was slow to develop but hung on to life with a strength and determination that came from who knows where. I ran and played with the others and slowly became stronger than I should be for my size, never letting my shortcomings hold me back, there was something different about me.

Animals would respond to me in a way that never occurred to the others, approaching rather than retreating. I instinctively knew if someone else was in pain, I saw glimpses of their futures and could tell them when I had a good or bad feeling about upcoming events. They began to trust my judgement.

One night while everyone else slept, a presence entered our hut and I awoke to see the dark shadow approach and then envelop me. Enclosing my body whilst I fought, it began to choke me and when I felt I couldn't hold out any more, I let go and instantly the darkness was gone. I'd learnt my first lesson and survived my first test.

In the morning I spoke of my experience and although extremely disturbed and concerned about this, my Mother knew what the Shaman had predicted and placed me in her care. I moved into the Shaman's hut on the outskirts of the village and slowly began to hone those traits that I had displayed.

Soon I was able to journey from the earth, the middle realm, to the underworld below and to the stars above by traversing the depths of the roots of the World Tree or climbing high into it's branches whilst physically sitting beneath the Magic and Sacred Yew, the teaching Tree and a metaphor for the cosmos.

Years later when our Shaman was taken from us by old age and I had grown into her replacement, I began to treat my brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. I spent the autumn foraging for the sacred roots and fungi in preparation for the Tribes Winter Solstice Celebrations.

My mind engaged in seeking out my predecessor in the spirit world and my successor in the living plane. I journeyed alone to the Sacred Yew, I sat with my spine against it's own, the living bark, one branch protruding comfortably over and above one shoulder keeping me firmly in its embrace as I lit a small fire. With my eyes closed the flickering light danced across my eyelids in colours of pure Gold.

The canopy seemed to envelop me as had the shadow, the branches that fell towards the earth in a wide circle became like feathery skirts, drifting back and forth, protecting and sheltering me as I searched for the answers to all of the questions posed by my Tribe. The feeling is one of progression, that work is being done and that the Journey will eventually lead to a destination.

Leaving the sanctuary of the tree for a moment, I returned but the shadow that can only persist in the absence of the blindingly beautiful glare of enlightenment crept back inside with me through the ethereal boundary forming outskirts of the yews canopy. Engulfing me in its perversion it threatened to overwhelm my nature and again, just as it was poised to extinguish that light the spark that remained rebelled in the briefest instant.

In that moment I learned the last and most important lesson. From now on nothing can exist that we don't create... I asked the sacrament, the Mushroom, what will happen at the end of all things? I was shown a future version of myself. One who would come in due time and who would release the angst and regrets of all previous incarnations, who could unite and forgive, heal and destroy the darkness. I saw the sacred masculine and feminine essences entwine for eternity.

I was one half and my love the other. Only we two in the entirety of existence. Everything and everyone else were figments of our vast and wild imaginations. We had decided to play along with the cosmic giggle right up until it expires. To ensnare ourselves in this human existence and abide by the rules of the game. To restrict ourselves to this mortal coil until it can fully unravel. Until time itself ends as Matter ascends into pure energy and light.

Thinking of you...

Light &
Love
Jon
x

---

The Shamanic Journey: Where Shamans Go

All forms of shamanism, whether traditional or contemporary, describe the ‘journey’, 'soul flight' or ‘spirit travel’. The shamanist scholar, Mircea Eliade, described this as, "the pre-eminently shamanic technique [of] the passage from one cosmic region to another - from earth to sky or from earth to the underworld. The shaman knows the mystery of the breakthrough in plane."
This ‘breakthrough in plane” which has been described, in physiological terms, as shifting from the left brain to the right brain via the corpus collosum, refers to the moment the shaman’s consciousness shifts from the here and now and enters worlds visible only to him. These worlds, which vary with each culture and tradition around the world, may be described as 'alternate reality', 'the realm of the spirits' or 'non-ordinary reality'.

Although often considered ‘primitive’, part of a pre-modern heritage modern people seem to prefer to forget, or seen as the ‘religion’ of less developed peoples and cultures, shamanism is both sophisticated and paradoxical. The ‘worlds’ of shamanic journeys, are utterly real – they exist and can be felt, smelt and experienced in every way as clearly as this ‘ordinary’ reality. At the same time they are qualitative spaces, states of mind that reflect and support the reason for the shaman’s journey. This geography of worlds, Piers Vitebsky suggests, ‘can be seen as a topography of mental states’.

Different shamanic cultures perceive the world, seen and unseen, in roughly three different ways. Some traditions of the Arctic, sub-Arctic and North American regions consider the sky as a tent and relate to the tent pole as the Sky Pillar, the link between Earth and the celestial realms. This was translated to a flag pole during a Santeria ceremony I witnessed in south east Cuba. Animals were sacrificed at the base of the pole and at the nights end the master of ceremonies climbed the pole to hang a flag in a gesture of climbing towards heaven. This symbolic link between Earth and Heaven is also familiar in the architecture of pyramids, temples and ziggurats which can represent the Cosmic Mountain, another connecting image between Earth and Sky.


The World Tree

The third and most extensive cosmological symbol and the one that contemporary shamanism, uses is that of the World Tree.
A tree, any tree, is a simple yet effective symbol of the three-layered cosmos that shamans, past and present, and from many different regions of the world, experience on their journeys. The Tree pervaded Mayan culture and in Norse mythology the god Odin hung on Yggdrasil, the World Tree. From the basic three layers many others may extend and in some shamanic cultures these many-tiered worlds are clearly identified and taught to new apprentices. In contemporary shamanism, which focuses on an individualist approach, each journeyer’s Lower, Middle and Upper World will be unique and personal; despite this, archetypal images and themes are common.

Lower World
The roots of the tree lie deep in the darkness of earth; the roots support and nurture the tree physically; the roots are the naked mirror image of the branches reaching into the sky - as above, so below. What lies under the earth, beyond the unseeing darkness is the Lower World, the place of power, of healing, of animals and our own animal ancestry. The Lower World is the place where we touch our origins and genetic heritage and it is from here that we draw the energetic power of the ancestors, which is to say all that has gone before.
In contemporary shamanism, as in many traditions, the Lower World is accessed by the shaman sending her 'free soul', her travelling self, to a familiar, real life place, such as a hollow tree, a pool, a cave, a rabbit hole. Entering the ‘access point’ the journeyer looks for a tunnel that leads deeper down into the ground, a tunnel that will eventually open to reveal the shaman's unique Lower World landscape. This landscape varies from person to person and can alter according to the lessons or information being sought in the journey. The Lower World is most frequently a place of forests and mountains, of rivers and seas, of small woodland clearings and vast chasms.

Middle World

The Middle World, the trunk of the tree, that which can be touched, embraced and climbed, is the alternate reality closest, and in some traditions, identical to, our present, everyday reality. It is the axis mundi, the link between above and below.
In the Middle World, a contemporary shaman’s journey may take her on trains, in cars and on aeroplanes to meet a teacher and ask for help and advice on the worldly issues that affect us all: finances, career and matters of home and hearth. The Middle World is the place we are most easily tuned to in waking state, the place of the senses. In a Middle World journey however, the shaman will go beyond the ordinary sensations of everyday life and perceive the natural world untrammelled by the physical body. A journey to the Middle World can deepen understanding of ordinary reality and reveal its wonder and beauty; things often taken for granted.

My own Middle World, the place where I go to learn about the relationship between world and spirit, is located on the ordinary-reality border between Egypt and Libya. It’s a dune in the Western Desert, where sand teaches me about permanence and impermanence, about the ways in which things that seem solid and firm, can flow and vanish to reform in a different shape.


Upper World

Just as the shamanic Lower World has no resemblance to the Hell of Christian cosmology, the Upper World is not necessarily filled with bright light and singing choirs. However, a shaman, like everyone else, is subject to their context and for many people the Upper World is indeed a place of brightness and grand architecture. For others it is a place of cloud and birds powerful enough to carry the shaman on their backs. Reaching the Upper World can be achieved by the shaman climbing a tree, or other plant, like Jack and his Beanstalk; by rising up in the smoke of a fire, climbing a mountain and jumping upwards, walking along a rainbow or, as in the Bible story of Jacob, climbing a ladder.

In contemporary shamanism, the Upper World is taught as a place of higher consciousness where we can meet teachers of profound wisdom who will guide us in the exploration of our own divine self and help us uncover our own mystery.
If the Lower World is the place to ask for power and healing, the Upper World is the place for existential Q & A: ‘Why am I here?’ or ‘Show me my true path in life’. In my experience however, the spirits are both subtle and wily; if I ask to be shown my path I am shown a path, literally! Sometimes if I ask questions that have no immediate bearing on my life or work I am asked, "Do you really need/want to know the answer to this?" and the truth of course is that often I do not.
A few years ago a new place started appearing to me in journeys, a place where all the Worlds meet and where all my teachers appear simultaneously. From this place I can visit any of my own three Worlds, or I may travel to somewhere new and unexpected. My Upper World, once green and busy with humans and animals is now a thin, biscuit crust that snaps and breaks at every step revealing other Worlds far below. I don’t know why this is happening, I have just accepted it. Perhaps one day I’ll ask!

The shaman's cosmology is a complex one that describes both the alternative universes that physicists are just starting to explore and the internal topography that reflects the society in which the shaman works. While this may seem paradoxical or inexplicable, in purely shamanic terms, where all is spirit and all is one there is no separation between this or that, between here and there, between you and me and the concept of inner and outer states loses meaning.

© Zoë Brân PhD

Can't see the Trees for the Wood - Do You Believe in Love at first Type? - In the Beginning was the Word - Guesswork and Speculation

Can't see the Trees for the Wood

In 1546 in John Heywood's 'A dialogue Conteynyng the Nomber in Effect of all the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue.' He wrote 'Plentie is no deinte, ye see not your owne ease. I see, ye can not see the wood for trees. (That's their way of spelling those words, not mine ;) 'In 1583, Brian Melbancke, in 'Philotimus: the Warre Betwixt Nature and Fortune,' wrote: 'Thou canst not or wilt not see wood for trees.'

"Too beset by petty things to appreciate the greatness or grandeur; too wrapped up in details to gain a view of the whole".

That's where all are right now and who could blame you? Let's face it the petty things in life are pretty convincing and consuming, until you make time to step back...

Do You Believe in Love at first Type?

Had a wonderful, refreshing, enlightening chat with someone online the other day. I managed to convince her that the milk of human kindness still exists, she made me feel like a Million Dollars. Now I've got to save up so that I can go to Miami to visit... ;)

In the Beginning was the Word

Words create. Don't believe me? Never been insulted or argued with someone and then spent hours going over and over what was said? Recrimination and rumination is still creation as is imagination. That's where everything begins. If you can't imagine it, it doesn't exist for us...

Until someone gives a new thing a name, does it exist?
Until a new concept can be described, does it exist?
To do that you must create a new word or words.
In the beginning was the Word...

Guesswork and Speculation

The accepted version of History is the one that we know from what still persists. It is changed constantly as new old things are discovered (assuming they agree with what the scholars already think in most cases). So what we know of the past is constantly being updated, old versions are forgotten and we teach our kids the new ones. The Dark Ages? No such thing, just an absence of an historical context to place the evidence into, to describe the old world. Because we don't have enough details to clear the picture up, it's always going to be murky and up for grabs.

The accepted scientific dogma is what we know now, based on the theories and speculation of the day. The world is no longer flat, the Moon not made of cheese. What we think we know now is our best guess. Nothing more, nothing less, than that. Guesswork...

So what do we actually know beyond a reasonable doubt?

What we feel...

Light &
Love
Jon
x

Too Good Not To Be True

Described as a magazine, but not exactly light after dinner reading

If something sounds too good to be true it probably is

However, I've experienced synchronicity

It feels too good to be true, but it is

True that is...

synchronicity (plural synchronicities)

1. The state of being synchronous or simultaneous.
2. (Jungian psychology) Coincidences that seem to be meaningfully related; supposedly the result of "universal forces".

Seemingly inexplicable things happen all the time and are soon forgotten but not those

The feeling is what stays with you. When someone special in your life is no longer there, gradually you start to find it harder to look inside yourself and see their face, that fades over time but not the way they emotionally impacted upon you. Ask anyone who has lost a loved one

Quoting from the Quiver:
An Illustrated Magazine for Sunday And General Reading 1892

The Last Year Of Life

If only we knew, a year before our friends die, the exact date of their departure, how differently we should treat them! It is terribly sad to think, when a loved friend has been taken from us, of the many things we would have done or left undone if we had been informed by some infallible authority that the last year he was with us was to be the last year of his life, what allowances we would have made for his apparent stupidity and irritability which we may have attributed to other causes, but which were really due to weakness. Perhaps, however, this knowledge would not have made us act very differently. There are people who know that they themselves cannot live more than one or at most two years, and yet the knowledge makes very little difference to their lives.

You know they will be gone at some point, so what stopped you from treating them right from the start?

Light &
Love
Jon
x

Gonna Have To Face It Your Addicted To Love - Hyprocrites Say No To Drugs

Take two people, one addicted to a drug, the other who is in the midst of Romantic Love.
Now separate them from what they crave.

Symptoms will most likely be similar for both people:-

• Inability to concentrate on common everyday tasks
  
• Pupils of the eyes seeming smaller or larger than usual
• Seeming unwell at certain times, and better at other times
• Extreme changes in mood – happy, sad, excited, anxious, etc
• Weight loss or weight gain due to loss of appetite or overeating
• Changes in energy – unexpectedly and extremely tired or energetic
• Sleeping a lot more or less than usual, or at different times of day or night

So what is the difference? Romantic Love is a drug just like any other. Become addicted and you are leaving yourself open to all of the issues above and many more besides.

Love need not be an addiction. Changing your attitude from "What am I getting out of this?"
to "What am I putting into this?" will help you to strive for a relationship based on mutual respect and Unconditional Love, to move from a selfish desire to be loved, to an unselfish desire TO LOVE!

---

Hypocrites Say No To Drugs

So are you against the use of illegal drugs? Me too. Only I'm against some of the illegal ones having that status in the first place.

Cocaine and its production is an Ecological disaster so I agree that it should be illegal, the other reason that I dislike it is that it turns people that use it into arseholes but so do the legal ones.

Many of the 'illegal' drugs are supplied through Criminal organisations that use the profits to fund their other lawbreaking activities. So the chain should be broken there, but it never is, I wonder why?

Mainly because our governments are quite happy to earn money off of your addiction to these... Gambling, Drink, Caffeine. If you can't go a week without one of the below then you are addicted. I know I am....

Caffeine Drug!
Alcohol Drug!
Nicotine Drug!
Medications Drugs!

You're just restricting yourself to the ones that are sanctioned by your national law makers and that makes you feel good about yourself or better than someone else?

Take another look at this from a less judgemental place...

If Cannabis for instance were decriminalised, in other words you could grow it legally for your own consumption or buy it from a government approved supplier, where would be the issue?

Within a week the Police would have more resources to put into the harder more damaging drugs (The British Government's own Chief Drug Advisor and Scientist quit over their refusal to follow his re-classification recommendations). Alcohol is toxic! Drink enough in one sitting and you WILL die. No-one has ever overdosed on Weed. It's virtually impossible to consume enough, but you could have a lot of fun trying...

It's a plant! Nature's been growing it for millennia and we've come into contact with it over the centuries, no-one said it should be banned until governments decided to suggest it caused Reefer Madness and put out Propaganda Films to warn of the dangers. Why was that?

Native peoples have proved through the ages that some things are safer than others and yet?

The Drink Industry lobby! All Industry has a vested interest in keeping the status quo...

YOU DO NOT!

Go after the people making money by all means but leave the rest of us alone!

We need to see things for what they are, not what we've been told.

Plants should not be made illegal, it's as simple as that.

If I'm not hurting anyone else where's the harm?

Wake up to what you are putting in your body.

The State has too much say.
Your life is 'yours to lead' not theirs.
Yours to lead in whatever direction you choose.

Get On With It...

Light &
Love
Jon
X

Granted For Taking - Camera Never Lies

Take for granted - Definitions

assume something to be true without verification or proof

Chinese: Mandarin: 想當然 cmn(cmn), 想当然 cmn(cmn) (xiǎng dāngrán) Finnish: pitää itsestään selvänä French: considérer comme allant de soi fr(fr) German: für selbstverständlich halten de(de) Hungarian: készpénznek vesz hu(hu), természetesnek vesz hu(hu), magától értetődőnek érez Italian: dare per scontato it(it)		Japanese: 当たり前のことと思う ja(ja) (atarimae-no koto-to omou) Portuguese: aceitar suposição Russian: считать само собой разумеющимся ru(ru) (sčitát' samó sobój razuméjuščimsja), воспринимать как должное ru(ru) (vosprinimát' kak dólžnoje) Spanish: dar por supuesto es(es) Swedish: ta för givet Turkish: doğal karşılamak tr(tr)
		Add translation : More masc. fem. neuter common gender plural Transliteration: (e.g. ázbuka for азбука) Page name: (e.g. amo for amō) Qualifier: (e.g. literally, formally, slang) Script template: (e.g. Cyrl for Cyrillic, Latn for Latin) Nesting: (e.g. Norwegian/Nynorsk)

to give little attention to or to underestimate the value of

granted

1. Simple past tense and past participle of grant.
2. Given, awarded.

   He was granted a patent on his invention.

Anything and everything that is wrong in your life is something you are taking for granted, or it's you who are being given little attention, never underestimate the value of verification or proof.

My examples:-

I don't believe in Religion but I am granted proof that death is not the end on a regular basis
I grant you for taking your dogmas, jealousies, addictions, compromises & neuroses seriously

Ultimately you need to experience things for yourself not let others provide you with answers or tell you what to think, how to act. What you need more than any 'thing' is peace of mind but it's easier to buy a short term quick fix like alcohol or in my case fast food and chocolate.

Light & Love
Jon
x

How Bizarre - Ooh Baby Your Driving Me Crazy - Every Time I Look Around

How Bizarre - Ooh Baby Your Driving Me Crazy - Every Time I Look Around

How Bizarre?

Neurotic behaviour is everywhere, I used to see it in the desire to have nice things for the sake of it or the snobbery that was so prevalent in some people. It presents itself again and again when you look at the extremes of our society. The worst of us are merely hints at what the rest are becoming or are already well on their way towards, the best of us seem like the fading flickering of an increasingly distant light at the end of the tunnel. Like caged wild animals we pace up and down our tiny rabbit hutches nervously, be they the cells of the accommodation mortgaged or rented or the windowless cubical at work.

Are we supposed to live with neuroses? NO is the answer you're looking for
Is there a better way? Yes and more & more people are realising that finally

How Bizarre do things have to get for everyone else to realise that change is upon us?
A splinter in your mind once discovered must be dug at until it can be removed or until you realise that the thing you can't explain away isn't the exception at all, it's the rule.

Pretty fucking bizarre is all I can say anyway, I know there are a lot of distractions at the moment but if you could just take the time to sit yourself down and ask a few difficult questions, the answers really are easy.

Do you want to be truly happy?
Do things make you truly so?
If your answer is yes to the first and yes to the second, I commend you for your desire to be happy but can't condone your method, so I can't argue but all I would say is, instant sense gratification and want are poor substitutes indeed for anticipation and need...

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Ooh Baby Your Driving Me Crazy

I met my friends new baby the other day and I must admit that I got a little broody, I managed to avoid nature's biological imperative in my teens and twenties, maybe my clock's ticking towards some kind of alarm going off... The story about the 80 or 90 something year old guy having a kid with his new (much younger) love, gave me hope that I might not have missed my chance, although I made a decision some years ago that bringing a child into this world is a double edged sword. Not only is it the most exciting time for anyone to be alive, it's also one of the most dangerous, despite all our hopes and dreams of a new future in the progressive 80's and 90's things are going backwards for many people. Would I want to burden a world that can't cope with the numbers of human beings now, with another soul?

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Every Time I Look Around

I've been blessed with many good qualities but sometimes you can have too much of a good thing right? I care too much and I'm way too selfless, or at least I was. I blame my mum, she's the most incredibly selfless person and the best human being I know (a close second possibly to the Dalai Lama although they'd both get a rosette if I was handing them out).

However, yes here's the but, I'm not bigging myself up here, I think I put others before myself a little too much in the past. Their happiness was often more important than my own was to me, misguided romantic feelings towards the wrong people, unrequited love. But I was picky mind you, I didn't just skip from one crush to another I did it properly. I loved my best friend for ten years or so and then my next 'thang' lasted a few years because I'd learned a lot about how much heartache I could take before making the decision to go cold turkey.

So now, I don't have feelings I shouldn't for my friends (girls only, I know you'd like to think I fancy you G.H. your hair is a deal breaker, I know that's vain and shallow but it's true). In fact it seems as though a lot of my neuroses have been if not cured then alleviated to a greater or lesser extent. I've been regenerated from the new shoots that grew when I travelled, when I cut back all the undergrowth of the past twenty or so years and let the light into my shady little glade, new life soon took advantage of it. I still don't like using the phone and I'm still shy around girls that I'm attracted to but those are trifles compared to the ineptitude of my youth, the cowardice of my post first relationship twenties and now I'm standing looking back on my thirties with some pride and some trepidation, but not much...

Every time I look around I think I regret less of the things that I've done than others do but maybe I regret more the things that I haven't done that they have... Maybe, maybe not

Light n Love
Jon
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Via la plata blog - Day 10

Following one of the Pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela

From Villafranca de los Barros to Torremegia - 28k

Day 10 - 18th April 2010

The lovely Mama of the household had washed all our clothes properly (even after I'd made my own stunning attempt in the shower as usual to wash my kit) and put it all out on the lines across the courtyard. Retrieving my washing from the huge pile in one of the downstairs rooms where it had been retrieved from the courtyard overnight before it rained. We were all sat around a big table having breakfast, Richard, Dick and Judy were there and a few new faces like a group of Spaniards I'd been seeing for a few days. One of them made quite an impression on me, Lourdes, if ever there was a reason for continuing this walking lark when sore and in pain, there's a good one, seeing her again. Maria reminded me of Grace Jones, statuesque, quite stern looking but a sweetheart and the guy with the most amazing curly hair I've ever seen, Enrique... (pronounced more like enrick?). I would describe it as being like Marge Simpsons, only grey and white and tied up down his back instead of tall and blue rinsed...

I thanked our hosts profusely after writing in the guestbook my memories of my stay and a glowing recommendation and commented that she had been my Spanish Mother to which I got an even more enthusiastic kiss and hug goodbye than everyone else did, although she was fastidious in making sure we were all ready and raring for the trail. After a good nights sleep or even after a so-so one and a good breakfast you really do feel amazingly good, spending every day carrying the equivalent of 10-15% of your bodyweight on your back really does get you very fit indeed or knacker you completely, either way you know you've done it when you finish. First thing there can be a few minutes (or hours) warming up period, for me I take it slow and build the pace up gradually during the day, by the afternoon not only do you think you can walk another 20 Miles but you're almost sprinting once you smell or taste the next stop.

The three musketeers are walking together this morning mostly, Megan tells me about two recurring dreams she has and after her account of the first has sunk in I feel like this is a great opportunity to lay out my whole philosophy by giving her my take on what her dream means. I set out, without going into details of the dreams as they're personal, how I see the world today and the people in it, what I see coming in the future and why I think that dreams are not prophetic necessarily but some are emotionally charged visions of possibilities and warnings, often cryptic messages and in some cases big hints for what we should fix in our own lives, the things that we should be doing that we aren't and most importantly time to explore a different way of life in our waking hours, to be more authentic. After all haven't you ever remembered a bit of a dream later in the day and only then realised that what you had taken up until now to have been a memory was really part of a dream? It is very wrong to dismiss them as merely the efforts of the concious mind to palm off our problems and imagery of our most recent experiences onto the so called subconscious and let it work them out and decide what to store and what to dispose of. Dreams are just as 'real' as our daily 'reality', if we could move we'd act them out as if we were awake...

Click on these to see the real view of the long and winding road that leads to...

Getting sidetracked, anyway long story short I explained that I had lost any sense of the milk of human kindness and lost faith in our society too and through chanting the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra for the waking hours of seven days straight on my first Camino & subsequently developing Self Knowledge through Shamanism, so between that and years of scientific and literature research I had gotten to the point that I knew, not thought KNEW that two things are true.

Look around you this world is ending, disasters are on the increase the signs are there.

Something is coming towards us from the future and we need to be prepared to meet it.

My routes to this knowledge were circuitous but now I can pass it on to anyone with some time on their hands and the willingness to be open and possibly become more whole, a more happy person without any fear of death and with a renewed relish for life. The answers were there all along but made more difficult to find with an Ego, by Male Dominance in our societies and by our own stupidity...

I don't know how long I had spoken but once I'd finished I didn't want any questions or to have to explain anything, I'd insulted the church in front of Catholics by describing the council of Rome as a Jolly Boys Outing for Patriarchal Church figures to sit around and edit the final cut of the Bible before publishing the version that would keep women downtrodden for centuries for no reason and a multitude of others sins committed in a good man's name. (For the Record... Jesus prayed and worshipped where he was at the time and not merely to the converted either, it took place in their homes or in nature NOT in a building purpose built to raise money for flabby paedophiles' and misogynists). There rant over... I'd explained how I'd come to my conclusions, to my renewed love of life, feeling of balance and serenity within that life and also to this journey and felt quite exposed which is the key to being open.

So walking off at a very quick pace I soon left Dirk and Megan behind to stew on my diatribe, I wanted them to get past the fact that I'd said some things that many people would think crazy or just downright offensive, to access how they feel and use that as their yard stick to measure what I'd laid out, not what they think they know or were taught. Not to let their ego get in the way of truthfully analysing my words. De-Reprogramming doesn't work unless the hardware and software work in partnership, the Brain and Heart must work together in tandem with the gut. I call opinions like the ones I used to have about most things, dodgy software and unless they're open to upgrading and bug-checking, surely their unreliable at best? Why do people put so much stock in opinions that they got by reading the Papers or watching the News, question time or match of the day?

Anyway it was too hot, almost featureless farmland either side of the Way and very little shelter from the sun so gone midday I stopped at what I assumed was the marker stone and information for the next big place and that it wouldn't be too far away now. Everyone else caught me up in minutes, even two hours of speed walking had only given me five minutes peace and quiet, although I'd only past the Spanish guy and girls in the last half an hour so I couldn't complain and it was good to chat as everybody took on water and food, regrouped, took photos and checked guidebooks. Half way there! Oh my, it's been a hard half, I hope the second bit is easier...

Hmm hard going, water running low and then out, my poor predictions of how far away the next place was from our peeks of roof's and the sight of pylons and power lines following main roads into and out of whatever lay beyond the hills and trees. Meg getting annoyed at both my stealing some of her water (even though she's got a litre left) but mostly because I poured it very well up until performance anxiety, the strength of her gaze making me spill a few drips to her chagrin. Then more annoyed when I say we'll be there in half an hour only for it to be half an hour on top of the half an hour we've already spent squishing through wet earth to make it through what was a sticky icky yucky mess of a muddy path for a few k's. Climbing out and up onto a railway embankment, crossing the line and cheering up at the sight of a tiny pony and then even more welcome the sight of Torremegia!!!

There's still some way to go yet and I grab the nearest old lady whose just emerged from her friends house by the look of it, almost takes my hand she's that kean to show us to the Albergue. Just so happens it's near her house and she's on the way there anyway, so off we three trot, past bullring, past main road, through main square past her house to the arse end of the village where the church is located and scrub land and farm land restarts. Walking up it looks like a very old building but surprises galore reside within... It's huge, clean and has just finished being completely refurbished. The dorms are smaller, say 8 to ten beds I think, brand new furniture and fittings which mainly means bunk beds that don't squeak when either person moves, the shower room is big enough for a football team and so is the toilet, I think they were just using up the space. Like all newer facilities and lots of places elsewhere in Spain the disabled access is superb and seem standard rather than an afterthought or a late addition, including the lift to what is basically a huge mezzanine upstairs containing all the rooms. I take my shower sat down because I can...

Meg and I pop out to get an evening meal leaving the nice German lady and her husband and entourage, often you meet people and assume that they all know each other or are travelling together, both are true but only for the last few days or possibly a few hours at times, groups form and reform over and over as new people join the Camino family and others leave. The first bar has Richard on the furthest bar stool sat chatting up the young barmaid so we join for drinks and more olives ugh, shame I don't like em, the other stuff she gives us next is more like it. It's a dirty little place but full of character which is the way it goes and lots of the old geezers having a social evening so we skip off and search the High Street, the rain making our decision easier, plumping for bar that'll serve food in a while. Families with kids, older and younger people in little groups and us. It's a proper Spanish atmosphere and the red wine comes in big glasses so I get a load of stuff off my chest and then I let Megan get a word in edgeways to excitedly tell me all about her friend who has recently become her boyfriend back home (finally, not for the want of trying). It's a wonderful evening, the food is good and disappears along with pudding and so is the conversation, frank, interesting, perfect. Meg's sense of direction lets her down on the way back and it takes a little wandering to find the place but it's so nice to have a proper evening out instead of huddling over a stove or back and in bed by 10:00pm on the dot.

Via la plata blog - Day 9

Following one of the Pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela

Zafra to Villafranca de los Barros - 20k

Day 9 - 17th April 2010

Fairly well rested, still determined not to get up in the morning even if I'm awake at some ridiculous hour and just lie there instead of making the grumpily half-brained decisions decided on in the past. Last night was nice, Megan returned the favour and gave my shoulders and neck a good going over, neither of us trained masseuses, just keen amateurs. Stripped to the waist sat on the sofa in the lounge, I appeared more similar to a torture victim as groans, moans and yes, at times shrieks escape my slightly cracked lips to amused looks from our Pilgrim friends sat chatting at the table in the corner. Hints and tips for the Road and life alike passed from one to another. A Dutch woman arrived later on and told of terrible times in Portugal following the way here, nights spent fitfully camping, being treated unconscionably by the local men and just wanting to come to Spain as soon as possible. She's really cool so between trying not to get territorial over the kitchen and trying to politely not eat the rather slimy spinach omlette that Judy prepared it was a very relaxed evening.

Packing your bag should take place in the evening before bed or once the light has gone on in the morning, or in emergencies carry everything out of the room so as not to awaken anyone else and go to a shared area to prepare yourself and your things. That's the ideal scenario, unfortunately sometimes you get in late and everyone's already in bed ;-) and sometimes it's other people who just either haven't thought about it or seemingly don't care about the disturbance they cause to everyone else. Once one person is up it can lead to a chain reaction of individuals being woken and deciding to get up now they're awake already ;-(

Megan's feeing much better and is determined to walk today so we just pack up as usual and head off when we're ready. The route becomes quickly rural , we must have been close to the edge of town and muddy as there's been quite a lot of rain but thankfully the way is clear enough that we can relax and just walk and see where it takes us.
Paco and Helmut are around for a bit but like a running race we are all soon spread out over the course. Starting to descend there's a guy coming the other way in a small car and he's gunning the poor little thing to make his way up a very bumpy track, I couldn't imagine trying that at home, sober. Maria? The Italian Peregrina who sings her way along the roads and tracks is up ahead, her lilting trilling voice carries back up to us from further down the hill.

We rocked up after I asked a jogger for directions to a bar on the outskirts of Villafranca d.l.b. Ordering a beer and a cola cao and getting free food, yay meatballs and chips and some nice new weird looking stuff, the barman gave us a stamp in our passports, a map of the place and drew on all of the hotels, hostels and places of interest, all that for the price of a cheery hello and a couple of Euros for the drinks of course. Helmut shoots off while I wait for Dirk and off we go into town in convoy past the vibrant small Saturday morning market and into the main square, past too what looks like the start of a huge weekend Motorbike Rally and immediately come across all the dutch and the single polish and Jacques + Pierre, everyone basically, all looking either for a specific hostel or swapping stories about no room at the inns. The Police Station in the Town Hall complex beckons me so I lead the way and we are greeted and given advice about alternatives, Pilgrim passports stamped and everyone is off in a hurry towards one or another, like a walking version of it's a mad mad mad mad world... I put on a sprint for a few yards with a 15 kilo pack on my back, feeling pretty good for the rest day and then regret it as my knees and hips let me know that even when used to this hiking lark I can't piss about. Jacques & Pierre look momentarily horrified that I'll get the last bed in the place before laughing as we all traipse towards the hostels further out of town. We find one but it's full, hanging around to chat and swap a few pleasantries, everyone else bugs out and leave Megan, Dirk and myself to ask for more information on where the Bus Station is and chatting about the town. It's such a shame because it's a really friendly little place, the town and the Hostel which is basically some rooms in this guys house let out to travellers. Thanking the helpful hostel owner and making our way rather pitifully towards the Bus Station we got there to find that it's closed (no surprise there, the booths are shut no ticket attendants as the bus drivers do all that). We just checked the timetable and agreed a course of action i.e. waiting around for two hours before catching the next one and hoping there's somewhere to stay in the next Pueblo. Who should walk in but the Dutch woman from Zafra and almost immediately afterwards the guy from the Hostel that was full, he's got a room available and asking him on the fly, he'll even stretch it to four if our new Dutch friend would like to? No she's going on to the next place on the bus so Dirk, Meg and I take the guy up on his offer without futher arsing around and sticking our bags in the boot and thanking the guy profusely we all get in his car, I get in the front, only to realise I've got in the left side as I would at home and I'm now behind the wheel. Getting out as quickly as possible and hoping he hasn't noticed, it's obvious everyone has and I fess up, we laugh that I was going to steal his car and I get in the back instead for a our thirty second ride back to his house. Our patience paid off, we got a room albeit two beds and a mattress to put on the floor at bedtime, but a comfortable room in a wonderful Spanish family home and all the benefits and pitfalls that comes with it ;-) I shot off to find internet and ended up in a bar as usual after fruitless searching for Tourism Offices and Libraries and back again to the hostel (finding a wallet on the side of the road on the way) to take Meg and Dirk down for some free food with a beer. The Funeral Director's lists services on the doorway including Incineraciones, how frank they are here. Later and as there were only two beds in the room which Dirk and Megan would be having, after my hot ducha (shower) I was opportunistically lead on Dirk's bed in my pants, sewing up a tear in the leg of my trousers when he walked in from his own excursion to town, perhaps looking for wee fee (wi-fi). I looked up a bit surprised and said "Nothing to see here". To which Dirk replied with a completely straight face "I know". Maybe you had to be there but we all fell about laughing. Our family group was now complete, we had a father and two kids, Dirk, Meg and I. The next few hours passed with me taking the wallet I'd found to the Police Station and then running into the two lads whose pictures I recognised from inside it, sending them over to pick it up then all off out to eat at the bar / restaurant for dinner, which was standard fayre but nice and made more fun by the kids messing around and driving their mother crazy and oh yeah another game of football, thankyou Spain.

Via la plata blog - Day 8

Following one of the Pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela

Fuente de Cantos to Zafra - Cheating on a bus ride

Day 8 - 16th April 2010

After quickly boshing the breakfast and letting Megan go for hers I pack everything up and double check the bus timetable, we head into the centre of Fuente and end up being just too late to catch the first one because it's much bigger than it seems at first glance. Finding the Bus Station we slump into seats in the Cafe and have quite a wait for the next one. I've seen images of a huge smokey cloud on television but without reading newspapers or having a t.v. to watch the full story on I've no idea what's happening. Txting the folks back home I get filled in on the Volcano in Iceland and after making sure Meg's happy to wait there while I pop back into town to try to find Internet access as I like to put my pictures online every now and then and check my emails. Arriving back in plenty of time to catch the bus into Zafra we stick our bags in the luggage compartment underneath and pay only 1 Euro something for what is a 20 plus kilometre journey, pretty sure you wouldn't be taken anywhere on a coach in the U.K. so comfortably and so cheaply. Nothing to do but sit back and relax, Megan's stomach was cramping all the way on the walk to the Station so she's still feeling pretty bad but it's a good sign that she tried to eat breakfast at least.

Arriving in Zafra the first priority is to find the Albergue and drop off our bags, after that I suggest we try to find a Red Cross Clinic as they usually have English speaking Doctors, however that was just my hope because I had a similar situation on holiday with my friends a year before in Majorca when Jess D. was suffering and I traipsed a good length of the coast trying to find a chemist open on a Sunday for some medicine and had to try to explain her symptoms to the Pharmacist. The Tourist Information is a good place to start and the rather attractive, incredibly helpful young lady behind the desk gives us all the information we need to find both somewhere to stay and The Clinic. Trying to find somewhere to stay is tough. We use the map and Megan's navigation skills soon become apparent, whereas mine are pretty much nonexistant (like the time heading to south east Wales for a camping trip we ended up two hours out of our way in Camarthen on the south west coast, I tried to bullshit and cover myself by saying there were two of them oops before we drive all the way back again). Zafra is busy, eclectic and has a large Castle in the middle but we find the Hostales listed in my limited information (a pricier option but we just wanted a room and to drop off our packs). Asking the third or fourth person as many are visitors, an older lady surprisingly turns out to be the Owner of the one we want. It's far too expensive so we opt out and after meeting Bob and Morag again only to find that Morag's been very ill and is still suffering from food poisoning it becomes clear that we've all had a case of the dodgy restaurant running grumpy bastarditis from Monasterio, cutting Bob short before he can start more stories we head off to the Albergue Turistico a middle ground in price terms.

It isn't very well signposted so it's a bit of a walk and the sign right outside points in the opposite direction helpfully. Dropping our bags off there are quite a few of our friends there already. We leave and pass Dick and Richard arriving only to bump into Judy whose been here for two days and fills us in on where the Clinic is and leave her after she explains all about how helpful they were (even though she's not a E.U. citizen and therefore doesn't have the replacement for the old E111 form, the European Health Insurance Card that I carry in case of such an emergency) and before she can give us too many details about her blood test as I'm a bit squeamish. Finding the Clinic the receptionists seem to take their time but finally we get to go upstairs and hunt for the room of the Dr Meg's got an appointment with. It's going to be a wait so I head off with Megan's blessing and go back to see my friend the Tourist Information Girl, who had complimented me on my Spanish before when trying to explain that my friend was ill and we needed to see a physician, I returned the favour with my stock phrase for such an occasion 'Usted es muy amable', 'your very kind' and probably lying lol... When you try you get a lot further than when you don't, comes under the heading if you don't ask (in Spanish) you don't get, I suppose...

Internet access has been very hard to find so far on this trip as the Tourist Information people although helpful, their 'information' is often inaccurate or out of date, however my friendly chica does give me some options on a new map as Megan's holding the other one (oh well a good excuse to see and talk to her again ha ha). So off I hunt after failing to get anything done on the free computers in the library as they all run Linux and won't give me access to my memory card or video camera (another regular occurrence on this trip, Linux linux everywhere). Giving up after yet another disappointing and rather painful walk despite the lack of a pack on my back I head back to the Clinic and find that Megan's still waiting patiently (medical non-joke) but hasn't been seen and the waiting room looks more like a free for all plus she only has an approximate appointment time. Asking if she wants me to come in with her, but not really wanting to like all medically allergic men, I'm starving hungry and she thankfully doesn't need the help. Her Lonely Planet phrasebook is brilliant and I make a plan to copy out all of the Chat-up lines ;-)

Heading back towards the Hostel and finding a bar open right opposite I settle for a beer and a huge salad that looks too big to finish but disappears and fills me right up followed by a glass of red wine, purely for the antioxidants' positive effects on my knees of course...

So, full and happy I go back AGAIN to the Clinic and arrive as Meg's coming out, my timing has always been impeccable or just lucky I guess, I think the former is part of the synchronicity that seems to be so prevalent on the Camino and at other times in my life when I take decision making out of the way and let my life flow naturally on hunches and instinct. We go back to the Albergue and have to wait for the door to be unlocked by the receptionist again, they obviously don't trust the locals not to pop in for some pilfering of Pilgrims possessions or some such behaviour. Judy is back and everyone is here, our room has been filled up by Dirk, Paco, Helmut, the other dutch pilgrim whose name has escaped me and Tomas the Polish pilgrim who never speaks but strangely enough suddenly becomes quite verbose (in that he says a whole sentence) when he sees me stitching my clothes and also my feet as is my habit of wicking blisters on a regular basis later on in the day. I give Dirk the nod about free Wee Fee (Wi-Fi) in the library and having done all my good deeds for the day I go off again to find an Internet Cafe. The bar that I eventually find is brilliant, brand new computers, webcams and headphones although the tunes they are playing are mint anyway and the atmosphere electric, plus the bar staff don't go unnoticed by me either phwoar! Most Spanish girls are an acquired taste but occasionally there's a Penelope Cruz lookalike (my friend in the Tourist Information) or a Shakira double like the barmaid.

I've become quite latin and hotblooded like the locals are by reputation, it must be catching, or it's the heat of the day, either that or it's the fact that I've just spent over a week sleeping in the same small rooms in bunk beds with lots of pre or post pensioners, mucho snorers and little privacy. I don't get mad, I've expanded the limits of patience and tolerance as a necessity.

Finding time to talk about Meg's appointment it transpires that she finally got her point across between her phrasebook, sign language and the doctors insistence over and over that she is feeling Cacka! This becomes our latest in-joke, if I want to make her laugh it's all I have to say. Hey Megan, um I'm feeling a little bit CACKA!!! Roaring with laughter is the best medicine but so is the fact that despite her still fragile state, Meg's feeling much much better already and even opts for some soup. It's great to see her winning smile back.

I go back to my webcafe and although I'm a total Skype newbie it's great to talk to, see and hear my folks and catchup plus I can put my videos and pictures online finally... Thank heaven for small mercies. I've always felt entirely safe in Spanish towns and walking back after dark is no problem plus the three Self Defence Bootcamp weekends I've attended afford me the confidence that if anyone so much as approached me in an undesired way, they'd be coming off worst (or I'd run away which was always my first choice before and after the Krav Maga training). I don't like confrontation, so I avoid it at all costs, but so should they. Introducing myself in my mind like this:- Me llamo Jason Bourne...

Next Time...

No room at the Inns. Trying to drive off in someone's car. The singing Pilgrim.