Process

Processio, Lat. ‘A marching forward’, ‘advance’.

Fifteen months ago when I arrived in Lausanne having walked there from Canterbury, I posted to this blog the ‘Processional’ account of the final day on the first half this ancient pilgrim route.  Today, as I pack up my rucksack to take up the Via Francigena again, it occurs to me that the last couple of weeks have been all about the ‘Process’ of preparing.

Last year Stephen walked the first ten days with me and then had to return to work, but this year he is coming almost the whole way with me.  This is wonderful!  But it means that a new part of the process is the need to get the house ready for the saintly sitters to live in for two months.  As the osteopath said to me yesterday, ‘Oh God!  Getting the house ready is the worst — it makes it almost worth not going away at all!’  It’s appalling how much grime and dust and heaping piles of junk and rubbish we are prepared to live with day-to-day, and even more appalling to think that our slovenly ways might be revealed to the two dear friends who are coming to give our cat some company, pick the end-of-season beans and tomatoes, and reset mum’s boiler clock when there’s a power cut.

Packing has been an interesting part of the process.  I get to share some of the weight — in more senses than just the literal.  We’ve had discussions about selecting clothing options for moving from high summer temperatures to the cooler days and nights of the back end of October.  We can split the weight of the two guidebooks, and other items, between us. I’ve got my pack weight down to a very manageable 8.5kg including water.  But still, spreading it all out looks like we are taking an awful lot of stuff….

In some respects I am piggybacking (if only! But that would be cheating) off last year’s process.  For example I have vivid memories of the Shoe Débacle (and wasn’t there a lot of French to be spoken, including the buying of high performance footwear in sports shops, not covered in the French O-level syllabus), so this time I can profit from the division of weight between us by taking not one but two pairs of shoes: a trail shoe and a trail boot.  The latter is Gore-Tex so intended for wet days.  But I’ve been having some problems recently turning my ankle (I think because of the orthotic I wear which lifts my heal and reduces the amount of my ankle that’s in the heel cup) so I might end up wearing the boot version with the ankle support even on the dry days.  Stephen is taking only one pair of shoes, confident that because they’re an Italian make he can replace them when they wear out after 5-700km.

One similarity to last year’s walk is that already we have encountered the kindness of strangers.  Ian, my sometime Dutch companion, proactively contacted a Swiss walker he’d met on his (completed) walk and asked whether she would host Stephen and me on our first night, in Vevey.  Isn’t that unbelievably kind of them both?  It reminded me that long distance walking really is achievable: although you are far from home you are travelling across a human landscape of connection. Ian’s thoughtfulness and Annika’s generosity have done much to allay the anxieties that I have been feeling for the past weeks, although my rational brain knows that the ‘Day of Fear’ is part of the process.  We are meeting old friends too:  staying this weekend with Hester and Angus who scooped me up when I had the blisters last year.  And in Tuscany there are friends waiting too: David and Marco, and Ann and Phillip, and more old friends to meet in Rome. 

Starting Monday at the hotel in Lausanne I finished at last year, we will take seven days to complete the Swiss part of the trail before we cross over into Italy by way of the St Bernard Pass.  A week of re-resurrecting my French, before I can  down to Rome using my much more fluent Italian.  Will there be St Bernard dogs?  Please let there be St Bernard dogs.  And please let there not be too many lone cani pastori, the shepherd dogs trained to mind flocks on their own.  It was such a relief not to have any negative encounters with cows or dogs last year.

I do know that when Stephen and I leave home tonight to catch the London train, our house will be as tidy as it is, and our rucksacks will be packed with all that we need.  The endless list wasn’t really endless at all.  As I write, my hiking expert has neatly packed his rucksack and mine is still disembowelled all over the floor.  But we are nearly through the process, and ready to get amongst it — to procede.