Go, go, go. Stop.

March 15, 2017March 14, 2017 | Mairead

(The Atlantic Ocean at Furadouro)

When I was last talking to you we were in the campsite with the Tubes… and the computer could not be fixed… Well, Monica rang on Friday and said it was ready… she didn’t elaborate so we weren’t sure if it was actually working. But Denis was not deterred, he was ready to take it back no matter what condition… I think this could possibly be a form of unconditional love…? for an inanimate object?

(Furadouro again)

So off we dashed to Porto. We had planned on parking outside the city at a camper parking place (and getting a bus into the Porto.) When we arrived the camper park was full so we had to drive all the way to the computer repair shop in the middle of the city. The biggest problem about driving in any city is finding a spot big enough to park. The next biggest problem is – driving in a city. Fortunately, it is only a problem for me and as I am not actually driving I kept my eyes mostly closed.

(Cute houses in Furadouro)

And would you believe when we arrived there was a line of huge parking spaces right outside! We realised they were short-term parking and very expensive (so no one wanted to use them – which was very lucky for us) when we were leaving which was much too late to pay… luck upon luck.

(The convent/monastery at Tomar)

The computer was fixed! Monica was thrilled to see us go, she had begun to recognise Denis’ phone number when he rang and even at a distance I could hear the dread in her voice when she picked up the phone and said, “Hello Denis”. So we could finally leave the area of Porto and we had no idea where to go, Monica suggested south along the coast so as it was sunny that’s what we did. We arrived at the seaside town of Furadouro. I loved this place, for some reason it reminded me of a film set or a Disney park…

(Frescos in the monastery at Tomar)

On Saturday morning we moved further south to a small town with a camper car park beside roundabout. On Sunday morning we moved on to the town of Tomar, I had been there and loved it when I was on my camino walk. Up on the hill above the town are the ruins of an old monastery and convent that were in some way connected with the Templar knights. We spent a few hours here and moved on to the town of Fatima and then onto another small town to stay at the Fire Station where there was a small camper car park.

(Huge outdoor area in front of the church at Fatima)

We are now in a very nice municipal campsite beside the town of Alcacér do Sal. There’s a lot of birdsong and a supermarket just up the road. There’s a castle in the town so I’m happy to settle down here for a few days and wander towards the castle tomorrow.

(Our view today… those white blotches are birds who fly into that field and for some reason remain close to the sheep)

Step 11. Make time for rest, Mairead.

I have a great idea! No, hang on, it’s a terrible idea!

March 10, 2017March 9, 2017 | Mairead

(I went for a walk to find the chiming church)

There’s a church in the town and every hour it chimes, quite a long tune, from a loudspeaker. I noticed it every hour yesterday… I’ve only just this moment noticed it today. That means I missed at least six chimes. (I’m not sure if it chimes on the half or quarter-hour as well.) Anyway, just another example of how one’s brain ignores the familiar…

(Interesting animals)

This campsite is interesting, I think I said that yesterday and one of the things that make it interesting is the Tubes… The Tubes are cement cylinders. You may have seen ones like them when passing motorway road works. I think they are used to redirect rainwater or maybe they hold electrical wires? Not sure.

(Three Tubes together)

But here at the campsite they are used for accommodation. They have a bed with thick mattress, an electric light and curtains and windows! They are tiny apartments for people who would like to experience camping without the tent! I am very attracted to them. I am starting to have an idea about buying a field and putting Tubes in it… and you can come visit me or just visit the field if I’m travelling! I haven’t completely (or even slightly) thought it through. I’m in the very-excited phase of this idea. Many of my ideas don’t get past the very-excited phase. It’s my favourite phase but it’s not very productive. It’s where I think This is a great idea and I can’t wait to bring this to the world and this will definitely be workable and I love it and I will work on it every day and in no time at all it will be completed and I will enjoy it for the rest of my life. In mindfulness circles this is living in the future… I am particularly fond of my imagined future.

(Two Tubes side by side)

Any idea that gets through the very-excited phase moves into the very-scary phase. Very, very few ideas survive the very-scary phase, it’s my least favourite phase and it’s also not productive.This is where I think this is a terrible idea, how did I ever like this idea? I could never share this with the world, this is like that time that people thought my idea was terrible and told me… This is the worst idea I ever had. Here we have living in the past, a particularly scary tiny bit of the past. No fun. It is truly remarkable that any idea would get past this phase, but some do! Anyway, I’m in a very-scary phase of an idea at the moment, I’m encouraging it into a productive phase but it keeps slipping back.

(Breaking news: The church chimes every half hour, just heard it. Can you see the loudspeaker?)

Step 10. Live in the present, Mairead.

Wake up it’s beautiful!

March 3, 2017March 2, 2017 | Mairead

Well, it’s been a wet few days since last Sunday and that’s made it easier to be working away inside the camper on the MindCraft website, which is now up and running – here’s the link. Today is overcast but dry so I’ve had my walk on the boardwalk and I’ve also spotted my first Camino walkers.

(Not a great photo but that white blob on the guy’s rucksack is a Camino Shell)

One of the things I noticed on the little bit of the Camino I walked (near Lisbon last year) was the amount of cafes/bars/restaurants out in the middle of nowhere that are open and will make you something to eat at any time of the day. The same is true in this area. On my walk today I passed ten little places open for business. I was walking to turn around and walk back so I didn’t stop but I’m dreaming up a plan to go for a walk and stop at as many little cafes as possible along the way. Of course as they sell beer and wine too I’ll be either wired due to the caffeine, sleepy due to the food or singing due to the alcohol.

(Isn’t that just beautiful?)

We got the go ahead from Monica in Porto, today too, to say that Denis’ computer will be ready tomorrow afternoon. So we’ll be off to Porto in the morning via the taxi and the train. We now know our way around the ticket machine, the train and the map of the city so that’s great right?

(Perfect little beach on my walk today)

Well, it’s not really, because that’s when I stop noticing things. You know how it is when you go somewhere new and you notice everything. The colours of the houses, the odd tradition of putting tiles outside on the walls, the orange colour of the roofs, the different cars, the funny shaped busses, the new trains, the old trams, the eucalyptus trees, the friendly smiling people, the strange language, the incomprehensible billboard messages, the street signs, the sounds, the smells…

(How could I ever be blind to this?)

But then as soon as you start to get comfortable and things are a little familiar you stop seeing them. Oh look at that statue, what statue? Of course it’s normal, there are millions and millions of pieces of information bombarding our senses in every moment and our poor brain can only handle a certain amount. So it prioritizes.

(That bridge (does it remind you of the Eiffel tower?) is the one I am standing on in the photo above)

It prioritizes on the unfamiliar stuff and of course the life-threatening stuff (that tram heading straight for you!) When the unfamiliar stuff becomes familiar our brain says, great one less thing to notice, now I can go back to looking for scary stuff. Thereby missing the beautiful, stuff, sniff, sniff.

(I love everything in this picture!)

It’s one of the things I love about travelling – I see the beautiful stuff! At home it’s harder to see beautiful stuff because my brain is only looking for life-threatening, beauty just isn’t life-threatening enough to be noticed. It’s part of the backdrop, it’s familiar so it disappears. Porto is beginning to feel like home… so I’m beginning to go blind to the beauty all around me.

Step 7. Stay awake to the beauty, Mairead.

Sometimes it rains in Portugal…

February 27, 2017 | Mairead

It’s raining! I know you will be disappointed for me but I’m ok, I have some work to do so it’s probably just as well I won’t be able to sit outside sunning myself… I hear it’s sunny in Ireland!

(Rocky and a bit cloudy in the distance on Saturday)

My friend Linda (of the tours around Porto) and I ran a workshop called MindCraft at the beginning of February and we’ll be running another one in May and again in June. This week I’m working on explaining what it’s all about for our website. I’ll send you a link as soon as it’s up and running but I thought I could start explaining now to get my thought processes working.

(Smooth and blue skies on Friday)

MindCraft is a combination of Mindfulness and Crafting in a one day workshop. The Mindfulness part of it is all about staying present with what’s happening around you and within your body instead of the usual things we do. The usual things like thinking and worrying about the future or thinking and worrying about the past. Or regretting the past or wishing we could repeat it or change it. Or wishing the present could be different. Or wishing we were different. Or wishing other people were different. We sure do a lot of useless thinking when all we really need to do is stay present and aware and deal with what’s right in front of us, right now.

(There are lots of small gardens like this around here, all dug by hand. In need of rain, I suppose)

Last year when Denis was diagnosed with prostate cancer, everything slowed down to the essential – what do I need to be doing now? I don’t think it’s the big things that cause worry and anxiety… it’s the thinking about what if the big thing happens. In my experience when the big thing does happen you are kinda too busy dealing with it to be thinking about anything.

(Another one, the small plants look like potatoes, maybe))

Mindfulness is about making us strong enough to deal with whatever life throws at us. So we have a little calm, contentment and the space to think about the important things… love, joy, peace, purpose, relationships, family, connection, community. The crafting is all about creativity and creativity is the route to finding solutions to our challenges. This is important: Thinking and anxiety are not the route to finding solutions to our challenges. Creativity is the route to finding solutions to our challenges, problems, concerns, difficulties, dilemmas, quandaries, troubles, irritants, stumbling blocks, obstacles, the lot! Creative solutions are what it’s all about. Every one of us is creative but not every one of us knows it. MindCraft wants everyone to know they are creative and that they can come up with their own creative solutions.

(And another one, I think there’s spring onions there)

So here I sit doing the work I need to do to make the message clear and simple… Mindfulness Strengthens Your Mind, You Are Creative, Creativity Solves Problems!

(Interesting looking rocks on the beach)

But it’s not enough for me to just make the message clear for myself or others. Writing about mindfulness will not help me to be mindful, thinking about creativity will not help me to come up with creative solutions. So here I sit, also, doing the work of living the message. Everyday I practice mindfulness, I practice noticing what is around me, I practice exchanging worry and anxiety for beauty, I practice exchanging thinking for feeling my feet on the ground, I practice writing and photography and I practice telling myself, this is enough, you are doing enough, you are enough.

(Behind the harbour buildings there are tables where the women sell the newly caught fish. That’s a cat on the fish scales. Fish weighing scales I mean…)

Step 6. Do the work, Mairead.

Stop Talking to Fear

February 20, 2017 | Mairead

(Very nicely located car park at Entrago)

We left Cangas de Onis this morning and set off for our next home. It’s a small village called Entrago, with a car park in the Picos mountain range that allows camper vans to stay overnight. I am sitting outside in the sun as I write which is very pleasant. There is a breeze but as the sun is a little warmer than I’m used to. All is well.

(A strange convoy of caterpillars… asking a question?)

When we picked this spot I had no idea we would be travelling through the Picos on route. Probably just as well. Before we set off Denis put the gps location into his sat nav and there was a choice of a shorter route or a longer route… Hmm, something shouted in my head “Take the longer route!” and I think it was Fear… I was more than willing to listen to Fear, but Denis wasn’t…. so we took the shorter route…

(Some of the Picos)

It was narrow and windy and steep (23% gradient) and I fervently promised to spend more time listening to Fear in the future if he would only make this scary bit better, NOW… he didn’t. I hate Fear.

(Beautiful Picos)

And then there was a break in the trees and we spotted the most amazing sight. Hundreds of mountains stretching off towards the horizon, the furthest covered in snow. There was no place to stop the van, there was no opportunity to take a picture I just had to enjoy the moment before it passed and try to remember how beautiful it was and how amazing it made me feel. And I was able to stop making promises to Fear and start paying attention to what was passing so quickly all around me. Beauty. It generates a very different feeling. Kinda mushy and kinda strong all at the same time.

Picos

(More Picos)

I had completely made peace with getting no photographic reminders when just ahead we saw a bus (a bus came up that road?!) parked… in a grand big car park! We would be able to stop after all and we did and I got some pictures for you… and for me and for Beauty and there’s none for Fear.

Step 2. Stop talking to Fear… Mairead.

The first step…

February 19, 2017February 19, 2017 | Mairead

(Cangas de Onis. Old Roman Bridge)

Home today (Wednesday) is a car park in Cangas de Onis, a very attractive town on the edge of the Picos mountain range in northern Spain. The sun is shining and it’s warm. On Tuesday home was the car park of a hostel in Bilbao, it was sunny and warm there too. On Monday it was a camper van park beside a lake in the south-west corner of France, it was grey and raining there. The day before, a different camper van park in Fontenay-le-Comte, which is about 50 km north of La Rochelle, it was cold and dark there. On Sunday we were sleeping on the Rosslare to Cherbourg ferry where it was wet, windy and surprisingly pleasant due to an amazing invention – the stabiliser. (From Wikipedia, stabiliser: gyroscopically controlled system used to reduce the rolling of a ship. It works.)

(View from the bridge)

I decided before leaving not to blog… because I didn’t know how to write about the other kind of journey, the one last year where lots of things happened… but they didn’t happen to me so they weren’t my story to tell.

(Lac d’Azur south west France)

Now I find myself on this other journey through France and Spain and eventually Portugal and I realise I miss the writing. Without it I feel like I’m ignoring some important extra sense of what’s going on. Of course I could just write in a notebook. Yes, I could just write in a notebook. Why don’t I just write in a notebook?

(Close up to the bridge)

I think I don’t write in a notebook because of a character flaw – I am a procrastinator. I put stuff off until tomorrow. I put things into the tomorrow tray… and the tomorrow tray is just an imaginary tray where no writing (or anything else) ever gets done. Stuff only gets done in the today tray, if you get my drift? Blogging, for me, has a deadline and although I don’t like deadlines I do respect them and they make me put stuff into the today tray… so blogging gets done.

Step 1. Write, Mairead.

Crossing Over to the Other Side

September 28, 2016 | Mairead

(Path around the lake beside the aires at St-Amand-Montrond)

It’s September, the sun is shining, I am sitting in McDonalds drinking coffee and sharing their lovely wifi and their lovely electricity. We’re back in France! We crossed over on Saturday night and it was some cross over! I had got used to the kind of crossing I like – calm, no waves, gentle lulling to sleep when you lie down. We’ve been on lots of ferries in the past five years and they’ve all been like that. (Mind you there was one about five years and two months ago that was rough so I suppose it was time.) Anyways, fifteen hours in it became calm, so all ended well and we docked in Cherbourg to sunshine and blue skies.

(There were quotes inside the door of every toilet at the first campsite… any idea what it says?)

From Cherbourg we drove south over the Loire river and spent our first two nights at a lakeside campsite between Orleans and Bourges. It was a quiet site with a handful of fishermen around a pretty lake. We chose this site in the usual way: pick a general area, look up one of the campsite books and pick one with facilities we want. Electricity and toilets are essential. If there’s a shop nearby that’s a nice bonus. If there’s a neighbourhood restaurant – triumph! This campsite had the basics and was close to a town so we figured the shop and the restaurant were very likely. We usually find this process works.

(Huge cathedral in Bourges)

This time we’re trying something new… we bought a book called Escapades in a Camping-Car. (Camping-Car is what the French call camper vans and motorhomes.) The book consists of 5 to 17 day circuits around nineteen areas in France. It shows interesting places to visit and campsites where you can stay. It also shows free stops, aires. Aires are places you can park overnight, not a campsite and usually there’s no electricity or toilets… but it’s free! The book is great with only one tiny problem – it’s in French. But on the plus side our French reading is improving.

(Pretty house in Bourges)

Yesterday morning we left our lakeside campsite at 8.30am and drove to the town of Bourges, where we parked in an aire. It’s often hard to find parking when we visit a town due to our size and we usually use a supermarket car park but this was better. From there we walked fifteen minutes into the town for a coffee. I also found a wool shop as I am knitting cheerful bunting on this trip and I was in danger of running out! Denis took the opportunity to get some mobile wifi from the Orange shop (we will get free updates if I mention them more than once in each blog… and a free t-shirt for every third mention, so watch for that!) They were very friendly in the Orange shop 😉

(While I was buying what I love – knitting yarn, Denis was buying what he loves – blue cheese!)

Actually, it’s something we are noticing this year…. the French are very friendly. Little things that make us believe the French really do love the Irish – thank you lovely Irish football supporters! We were in the petrol station buying the Camping-Car book when a French man, overhearing us talk as he walked into the shop, asked (in English) if we were Irish, he noticed we had left the petrol cover open on our car and wanted to tell us. Ok we didn’t have a car but still…. wasn’t that nice? And then in Bourges at the tourist office, where I went to locate the wool shop, the lady asked where we were from and beamed from ear to ear saying “ah Irlande!” Ok, not big things but last year in the tourist office in Carcassonne when I said I was from Ireland they said absolutely nothing… nothing. Silence. So I’m taking this as a win.

(Look! Even McDonalds love us!)

After coffee we moved an hour south of Bourges to St-Amand-Montrond… and another free parking spot. It’s beside a pretty lake, there are toilets and it’s a five-minute walk to a hypermarket and a McDonalds. And it’s free… We will be moving to a campsite tomorrow because we need electricity to charge the computer and phone batteries and a hot shower would be nice!

From McDonalds, nowhere near an Orange shop (there’s my free t-shirt…) Mairead.

Nearly home…

March 29, 2016March 28, 2016 | Mairead

(Over and under the Millau Bridge)

Ah the journey is nearly over… we are getting closer and closer to Cherbourg and our boat home on Wednesday. We were in Spain the last time I wrote, in pouring rain and although the rain is pouring again we had a week of sunshine. We have started travelling in one hour segments off the toll roads and it was a little disconcerting to begin with but I’m glad we did. We have been in some beautiful places… We decided to go over the Millau Bridge and then under the Millau Bridge on our way to a campsite. The road over it is very wide… the roads under it are not and some of them say No Camping Cars…

(Fog filled campsite in the valley of the Tarn river. There is a hill directly behind the house in the picture)

Finally we reached our campsite on the side of a hill in a village called Saint-Rome-de-Tarn (Midi-Pyrénées). The reception was at the top of the hill and three hairpin bends later we were at our pitch. There would be no climbing back up on foot if we needed anything. We didn’t need anything. And the toilets? They were magnificent! The showers also! Next morning I took the photo above while wondering how we would navigate out in the fog.

(Rising above the fog filled valley)

But I needn’t have worried, there was fog all along the valley but as we drove higher the sun broke through. We stopped to get a picture above the clouds. It’s funny to think that a village up there would be in sunshine with a respectable 9º while twenty minutes down at the river it was 2º.

(Surprise! Chateau!)

We were heading to a camping car overnight parking in the village of Montsalvy (Auvergne) but with twenty minutes to go there was a diversion. No problem, Molly was on hand to find a way… Unfortunately, Molly thinks we are a little smaller that we actually are and tried to send us on paths we might have been hard pushed to fit on walking side by side. We rejected many of them but eventually we took one and had a bit of a mystery tour.

(Can you make out the white van on the road?)

An hour later we stopped at a lay-by on the side of the road to have lunch and took the photo above. It was glorious, cold but sunny so we bundled up and had lunch at the stone picnic table.

(Lunch on top of the mountain. Reward for surviving!)

We set off again full of smiles. Then the road got narrower. We entered at least five villages where we weren’t sure if we could squeeze between the houses, let alone what would happen if we met another car. There were no other cars. There was a tractor. When I saw it coming I covered my eyes! But they must make them brave around here because even though he was on the steep drop side he drove up on the kerb and was gone before I remembered to breathe. Viva les français!

(Each camper space had a hardstanding, hedge of privacy (!) a grassy area and a picnic table!)

We left the day foggy campsite at 9am and sometime in the afternoon we finally arrived at Montsalvy our home for the night. Because it’s winter (I think that’s what the sign said) there would be no electricity, no water and no toilets, but it was completely free and very pretty.

(I got very excited when I saw this shop. They sell craft paper! No, they office supplies!)

I woke in the middle of the night and thinking it might be morning looked out the window. There was a full moon and all the trees were silhouettes. No pictures but I took one the next morning. In black and white it’s a close-ish proximity to what I saw during the night. Minus the moon. This is like a magic place.

(The view from our bedroom window at the free overnight spot)

I will remember this day for a very long time, Mairead.

The Rock of Gibraltar

March 10, 2016March 9, 2016 | Mairead

(At the back… Ruby and The Rock)

We’ve moved. We’ve left our campsite near Lagos and we’ve left lovely Portugal. We’re in search of a little more warmth and off to somewhere sunny in Spain. But on the way we visited Gibraltar. Gibraltar is a very small peninsula jutting out into the Mediterranean Sea, at the south of Spain. It is also a British overseas territory. They have a Union Jack flag and they speak English. And Spanish. It is interesting to hear people weaving their speech between Spanish and English depending on who they are talking to. We were sitting outside having coffee and there was a local couple sitting at the next table. One moment the lady was speaking with a very pronounced English accent in English to a friend passing by and next thing she was speaking what sounded like fluent, flowing Spanish, in a Spanish accent to a different person.

(At the front… Ruby and the marina)

The currency is pound sterling although they also recognise the € (kinda). We arrived in the town of La Lina on the Spanish side of the Gibraltar/Spain border on Saturday evening and stayed in a motorhome car park at the marina for the night. Next day, Sunday, we set off to have a look at this little bit of Britain in the Mediterranean Sea. It was a beautiful sunny day on the Spanish side of the border as we entered passport control. A machine read our passports and then a human read our passports and then we were in Gibraltar. It was sunny there too! Almost immediately we passed their airport and then we got to cross the real, live, working runway! There were no planes at the time… so we stopped, briefly, to take a few pictures.

(On your marks, get set, go!)

(Quick stop for a photo in the middle… Of. A. Runway!)

All the street signs and shop signs and advertising billboards are in English. We were hoping to go to the top of the rock and see the apes, but the cable car was closed (and so was the Marks and Spencer shop – closed on Sundays). No problem we decided we could probably do with a bit of strenuous exercise and began the long, long, sunny day, steep, climb by foot… Problem. Until we saw a bus… It was at that point that we realised the recognising of the € might be a bit tricky.

(Moorish Castle and flag)

The bus driver was very friendly and unfazed by our slowness – we didn’t know the fare and we held up the whole bus searching for change but we scraped together exactly the right amount – €4. The bus was going to Europa Point where there were beautiful view of Africa (no monkeys/apes though). We took loads of pictures and decided to go back down on the next bus. This time we’d be prepared so we went to the little shop to get change for a €20 note as we had nothing smaller and no coins left. Unfortunately, in spite of us being more than willing to buy some chocolate (more than willing) the shop did not have change of our €20. We were in a bit of a bind… I suppose a little more walking might have been possible… We went to wait at the bus stop. A very friendly lady with her husband and two children told us the drivers are used to giving change. No problem so.

(The lighthouse at Europa Point)

Problem. The driver (not the previous friendly one…) didn’t have change. A nice older man offered to give us the change but he thought we had pounds, sadly when he realised it was euro, he rescinded his offer. Do we have to get off? The driver said I’ll wait while you go to the shop. We tried that, they don’t have change. He said, go on so, sit down. We were very flushed taking our seats. The nice lady’s husband, joked, I bet you’re feeling embarrassed now! and all of us in the English-speaking section of the bus laughed. Gibraltar is a very friendly place. No problem so.

(That’s Africa over there!)

Problem. The bus driver didn’t laugh. He changed his mind, give me the note and I’ll go to the shop. Everyone stopped laughing… Denis went up with our €20. The driver hopped out of the bus, over a wall, around the playground and up the path to the shop. The whole bus waited. Someone joked, Tourists! I think he was joking. I was trying to communicate an I’m sorry to the non-English-speaking people but it mustn’t have translated well, because they were looking at us, but not in a loving way.

(We didn’t feed any Macaques… we did see one from the bus but we were a bit busy at the time…)

Next thing the driver is on his way back with change! It must have been some kind of miracle thing where they discovered change in the till… Whatever it was, the bus started and there was just a bit of mumbling… not sure what it was about, probably not about us… probably, I was feeling very flushed again.

For the rest of our day in Gibraltar we used the credit card, Mairead.

P.S. I’m way over my embarrassment budget so I’ll be giving up embarrassing things for a week or two.