The story of Hedge - an excerpt from TTC - chapter 43 as TTC arrives in St Juan de Ortega

Having climbed the Oca hills, walked across the vast deforested plateau, Declan and Tommy sallied down the hill out of the forest and past the sunflowers. Their first sighting of San Juan de Ortega was brief. As they strolled round a corner the church tower held a lofty point on the horizon, but not as lofty as the crane behind it. They both disappeared just as quickly as the foliage thickened around the pilgrims before re-appearing much more in focus.

"Roof repairs" said Tommy. "Church and crane are rarely separated on the camino, and I dont mean the nesting storks"

"Yeah, in Ireland its church and state, but here there's a crane on every corner" replied Declan.

The path led past the hostal, with a sign advising you to book your room in the bar. Declan and Tommy had other thoughts. They strolled purposely past the many resting pilgrims, nodding, smiling and uttering the well aired, "Buen Camino" before entering the San juan bar.

"Dos vino tinto por favor" said Declan, "and olives, y aceitunas, por favor." Pilgrims stuttering into Spanish was a rare treat for the hopitalero, "aceitunas!" he replied as he raised a weary smile.

"So Declan, why the 'Hedge'? " said Tommy as the barman poured the vino tinto into tumbler glasses.

"Its a long story but I was a student in your neck of the woods and I drunk a lot. I got pissed one night in the wee red bar and stumbled off home on my own. I wish I had made it on my own but I picked up a branch or two on the way."

"Ah! We used to drink milk out of these when i went to school" said Tommy signing as he glugged his wine "so that's why you're called the Hedge"

"I wish!" replied the Hedge as he lifted the olives and his wine and headed outdoors, "...It was even simpler. I woke up with all this foliage in my bed and I had a thought. It's not the most unique thought but it was my 1981 honours thought.

"Next thing I know I'm a hedgie'lante. I retraced my steps as I wanted to know how I'd got home and it wasn't that difficult. I'd come home my usual way but instead of walking into the street to get past the hedges, I must have fought my way along the pavement. There was one hedge on the corner of Findhorn place I must've tried to sleep under and then another very close to home in Cobden crescent. I'd clearly got the huff with these hedges as I'd bent, snapped and tucked the branches back into the gardens from whence they came. Quite a tidy drunk."

"so you're a tree hugger or is it tree mugger, then?" Laughed Tommy as he leaned back and admired the small square in front of the church.

The pilgrims were lounging around largely in the shade, exchanging stories, updating fellow pilgrims on the whereabouts of the many cherished characters. Some were visiting the church to light a candle, others filled their water bottles and moved on towards Ahes, Atapuerca Cardenuela and Burgos. Tommy smiled with the sunshine and his sweet surroundings as the Hedge carried on his story.

"So, I had this idea. If me, a guy with eyes got all scratched up by these hedges, albeit, I was blind drunk, I thought how hard is it for the blind folk. The Blind school is just around the corner and all these people were ignoring their civic duty. I was 20, I had a cause. Free Edinburgh blind folk, let them walk the streets of their neighbourhood. That was me. I got a pair of secateurs and on the way home every night, I'd cut chunks out of hedges. I take a strip and cut it back two feet until it was at the wall. It looked like the hedges of Edinburgh's salubrious south side had developed alopecia.

"You'd be a popular guy" bellowed Tommy as the wine loosened his vocal chords.

"Oh yeah, with the gardeners maybe, not the owners. They were being called out regularly to tidy up after me!"

"Hedge, you're brilliant." Tommy continued leaning back on his chair, munching an olive and draining his glass, then bouncing to his feet.  "More vino," he paused, "... you know,  I'm thinking back now and there was the guy in the hedge. I remember dropping a car off in Minto Street and seeing some weird topiary. We called it the guy in the hedge. Did you ever do any there?"

"Oh yeah! That was the one that really pushed me on for my degree show. I stood on the wall, cut my self into the hedge and when I emerged it looked good but I couldn't really tell as it was dark. The next day I was all hyped up and I fell out of bed at 8 and had a look. It was brilliant. It was a guy doing a star jump and that was me. I took pictures of it from all angles. I even got on a bus to get the aerial vista. From that moment on, I stopped giving the hedges unruly haircuts and became a hedge'lante. Using the light and shade of the depth, I started looking all round town for hedges I could work on. The coolest ones were when I could do the tops so that you only got the message if you were on the top deck of the bus. The bus thing was really important to me. Only the prols take the bus, and my art was definitely for the prols"

"Its all coming back now I really do remember this now. You made the news didn't you? You were surely the tree huggers Banksy." The barman approached to take Tommy's glass and with a gracious smile he uttered the pilgrims mantra. "Dos Vino por favor, that was lucky eh, saved me walking any further. These guys know its a good 12km stretch from Montes de Oca and really look after you."

"Yeah, all across the camino they just read your mind big man!" Laughed Declan. "I think I beat Banksy, but yeah, same idea. I loved it. My imagination was fired and it started a craze for a few months. Unfortunately any hedge'lante is only able to work during the growing season. As soon as the autumn cut is made the gardeners have got me stumped. I became very rubinesque in the height of summer as my creations looked like they were getting chemo only a week after I'd cut them. The growth in July usually covered my work within 5 days. I really got into it"

"Hi guys, have you seen Danny the crazy Dutchman?" asked Sophie as she dragged a chair out to join the boys.

"Yeah, just 2 minutes ago" replied Tommy, "I gave him a wee wave as he was filling his bottle up. He had that determined look. Head down, find albergue and hit the mattresses by four. I'm guessing he'll be stopping at Ahes, its about 50 minutes, or 40 the way he walks. No sign of his injured toe now, he's back to speeding past us wee jakeys."

"We'll probably head down to Ahes as well, but we're waiting on Jose and Harry, Tommy's pals." added the Hedge.

"Cool, I'll have a drink here, then catch Danny in Ahes. He's a good guy, a bit crazy, but carrying my sleeping bag so I love him. Is the vino any good?"

The first hour

It is well known in camino circles that wandering around in the dark for the first hour proves irrefutably that eating carrots does not give you night vision. The number of casualties also proves that the darkest hour is indeed just before dawn. So why?..., I have often asked, do our michelin guides regale us with tales of early morning trenchfoot as another water filled crevice is stepped into,  a ploughed up field is mistakenly taken for the path or the albergue swimming pool is full of splashing as pellegrinos pop their toes in at 5.55am.

I have often given accounts to pilgrims of the hours of practice people preparing for the camino will indulge in while dodging dangerously around darkened living rooms lit only by the tiniest pop up torch. These slender beams of laser light that can pierce the eyes of the sleeping souls in the albergues who consider 6am a time to be farting and snoring as opposed to rustling plastic bags while impersonating POW camp guards as they send their shafts of light from bunk to bunk. I would've suggested simply camp guards, but I dont wish to create an image of flouncing as these beams dont flounce. They are direct and as noisy visually as the crackling of the bags are on the hearing as they are crumpled into the corners of the voluminous valises known locally as backpacks.

It is the part nobody prepares for at home. Packing in the dark. You hope that these early risers will walk a bit further than you, but no, they stop earlier so when you roll in at 4pm they advise you on which albergues are available. You try to ignore them and walk on in the hope of some longer lies, before conceding defeat and booking into the Monasterio. Let's face it, the luxury is worth it. Albergues are cheap, but the sleep is not. Sleep costs money.

But back to the darkened living rooms. Yes preparing.  They walk around their furniture for hours on end getting used to the bumps on the knees from hitting the corners of televisions and tables, but I can assure you all, there are no tv's on the camino. There are plenty of trees, holes in the pavement, puddles and quagmire, but how many people have those in their living room. Not many, that's what I say, not many, and none are doing the camino. So prepare for the camino by learning Spanish, but dont get up at 3am and stumble around your flat in the dark. Give thanks for electricity, flick the light switch, give a nod of gratitude that you still have your sight and promise to yourself you wont leave the albergue until daybreak.

I wrote a song called, "In the first hour". Simple repetitive number, it starts in E and is about as rowdy as Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay". As you mumble "in the first..." you stumble from E to A and then you wander back down to E as you sing I saw a ....(then back up to A) ....shower", then back to E, up to C, B and then high E.....and then repeat using as many different rhymes as you can think off over the next hour.

You could have for example

In the first hour
I saw a soldier
C                       c         B                E
I saw a soul where, no soldier could exist

In the first hour
I saw a shower
I saw a shower as I lay in my pit  (ha ha, Ha Ha....in the style of Alex Harvey S.A.H.B in Delilah)

Its important also to have the mad psychotic eyes of the pelegrinos who has been woken up by the laser lights only 2 hours earlier and never really got back to sleep....but can turn it into song to cheer his poor temper...

In the first hour
I saw a laser
I saw a laser while I tried to sleep

It lit up the room,well,
And I shouted effin ell
But the beam pierced away till I did weep

It was their first hour
It gave them a power
A power that is given to sheep

Soon rustling bags came
Disturbing's their main game
Then they leave and its calm once again

Except for the snoring
.....

You get the idea....before you know it, you've walked 5-6km and you are wide awake and chirpy.

Happy Birthday Caitlin Linda Margaret McEwan

Happy Birthday for you too

The NY timeline makes you 22

Its taken a while

To get that last mile

Now lets party at yer chuckety do

Now chuckety aint really a word

But its rhythm is like that of a bird

One with no wings

That tortuously sings

In a style that is abysmally absurd

It sings in the key of B-flat

Until the cat drags it onto the mat

With no wings it cant fly

So puir wee birdie must lie

Its not a bird but a baby cat

So the cat smiles and says hello

Its jaws relax and do let the bird go

They chat for some time

About a nickel and dime

And the owl pissed off to a show

Now I interject with a timely boast

As my egg is ready to place on the toast

The yolk it is runny

So I thought it quite funny

That the white looks like its seen a ghost

So what has all this got to do

With the fact that you're now 22

I just wanted to say

A big Happy Birthday

and as usual I've no effin clue

Love you too

Mum & Dad xxx

Afternoon shadows

Later after the cola cao and another 10km you notice the sunburn on your left side. You are free of such nonsense on your right side, unless you walk backwards. When i say backwards, i mean it literally. From santiago backwards towards st gien, but you walk forwards. If you walk with your back to the path, well you wont get sunburn, you'll fall over. This place is a death trap when you are looking. Blindfold, its basic stupidity....

Long shadows

The definitive picture from the camino concerns the shadow the pilgrims cast on the horizon. Early in the morning the darkness shields the shadow for those sharp dressers who with wing lights illumanating their path can  seamlessly stroll stumbling in a straight line. This is clearly not for me. I wait until the shadow is ahead of me. It is the starters pistol shot, the hooter; the klaxon; the signal to commence movement. I see my hat 40 metres ahead and i try to catch it.

I walk this way for 2 hours until the sun adjusts and my shadow shrinks and slides to the right. That's usually cola cao time. If its October it is also the moment I disrobe. My body warmed by the 10km I can dispense with my warm up top and bottoms. Well, after the cafe I will....

Another great gang of pilgrims

Don from near Bedford Massachusetts shows some fingers and then there's the lovely lady from Croatia, Louise the stonner from County Clare shows her 4 digit hands, Ivan & Irene from Oz, Gordon the marathon runner from Hampshire and Karina....Don and I didnt want a compostela to prove we'd walked it, ...until.....we found out it was the 800th anniversary of St Francis of Assisi's camino and consequently a rarely produced centenary edition was available.....well ok then said we....turn left to Cathedral turn right to Monasterio for rare compostela!

The ball arrives

Santiago on a sunny saturday - the ball has arrived. It has been kicked, dribbled and then rolled into rivers...retrieved and then kicked again