Well! 3 Sleeps to go!
Today I went to the Church of St. James in James's street in Dublin and I got my Pilgrim Passport,then went to Guinness's Hopstore and received my very first Camino stamp, woohoo!!!! The journey begins. Well actually,not really, it was a bit of an anti climax in fact, as I just went home afterwards. I would have had a pint,but I don't like Guinness. I just didn't want the hassle  of traipsing into Guinness's first thing Friday morning before going to the airport.
The important thing is, I have the passport and can start in earnest on Friday. Roll On........
Tonight I will start to pack and maybe post the contents of my backpack here tomorrow.
BFN
Jo 

Joining the Journey

Hello Everyone,

There's 4 sleeps to go before I head for my starting point of St.Jean and I feel the butterflies stirring! Guess what, Marie and Catherine have decided to meet me on the road to Santiago for the last week of the journey, which is really cool! At that stage I will probably need the two of them to carry me home anyway LOL.
I'm posting this map so that you can follow me on my journey to get some idea of the ground covered as we go along.

There are different routes you can take and the one I'm doing is called the Frances route or Camino Frances.
Talk soon

One Week to go!

Hi Everyone,
I have just 7 days to go before I embark on my Camino journey. I hope to use this blog as a kind of diary of the trip and I hope you will all check in now and again to see if I am still alive at least.
I have been asked lots of times in the last week how much training I had to do to prepare myself for a five hundred mile walk!Well the answer is, none really,since I only decided to go last week,ha ha!
Some of you will know that my ankle is not the may west,my weakest point in fact, so this week I have been focusing on strengthening those muscles to avoid strain, using various exercises and I have actually been out walking up and down hills and walking on uneven surfaces to that end. I reckon the rest of my unpreparedness will show up in the first week!
In fact I just found out that on the first day and the very first stage of the Camino from St. Jean de Port to Roncavelles is a very steep climb up a mountain! No easing myself into it so!! Just as well Don Elliott bought me two walking poles..As a just in case, I bought some insurance today when I found out Ha ha!
So I am leaving on Friday 30th and if I am not back in Ireland by Sunday you will know I managed the 1st stage and have carried on. I will continue to post here as the journey progresses,but probably not every day as I will have to wait until I get a Wi-Fi spots along the route. If anything comes up beforehand I will keep you posted.
Regards
Jo