Sometimes I wonder about that old saying about things happening in threes – good things come in threes, accidents and deaths come in threes, we say third time lucky and three cheers. I’m not saying I don’t believe those thoughts but I really sat up and took notice and began to think about them recently……
I’ll start by saying years ago I read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.
The story about a man who hears an old friend of his is very ill and decides to walk to another town quite a way from where he is living in the hope that she will still be alive when he gets there. Long and at times a bit ho hum it tells of how he copes with the journey, his attitude and feelings to the hardships he experiences also the people he comes across on his way and how he is a changed man at the end of it.
Later that year while we were away overseas I mentioned the book in passing to a friend and she suggested another book with a similar title. Called What the Psychic told the Pilgrim by Jane Christmas this is not a novel but a tale (true recording) of the pilgrimage she made in Spain along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela (try saying that in a hurry lol). So very different (much easier to read) and yet quite similar to the other pilgrimage book, this deals with similar hardships and attitudes and feelings Jane has to her fellow pilgrims as Harold had to his. They both wanted to give up their treks but continued without all the fanfare around them and by the end both had ‘found love’.
That was the year Simon Reeve’s Pilgrimage documentaries were released
Simon Reeve retraces the adventures of our ancestors, and learns about the forgotten aspects of pilgrimage – including the vice, thrills and dangers that awaited travellers.
We watched but like many things these days I can’t remember a thing about it🙁
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Fast forward to last week visiting the library what do I see on a display stand but the Harold Fry book. Curiosity got the better of me and I looked along the C shelf wondering if Jane Christmas’s book was there……that would have had me giggling if it was.
No not there but it turned up on a free internet site (https://archive.org) when I was looking for something else……and look what else I found😊
I’m now wondering how long it’ll take me to finish reading the books I brought home – then I can set to ……reread both books, then rewatch the different episodes of Simon wandering the world
Still Waters 