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EL CAMINO DE SANTIAGO: BEERS ON THE WAY

by Graeme Cook

Graeme Cook has long held a romantic view of life on the road, walking from town to town and place to place, carrying life's essentials in a rucksack on his back, stopping to eat and drink whenever and wherever he fancies whilst regaling the inhabitants of said bar or cafe with tales of adventure and derring-do. Always being savvy enough though never to outstay his welcome. Leave 'em, wanting more and all that.

Clearly, at the age of sixty three such fantasy demands a location where the weather is warm, rain is against the law and all overnight accommodation has en-suite facilities. And he doesn't have gout any more. What are the chances?

This book charts an epic thirty five day walk across northern Spain from the French Pyrenees town of St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to the capital city of northwest Spain's Galicia Region, Santiago de Compostela with the occasional (ahem) beer enjoyed along the way. It is available from Amazon at £3.99 for the e-book version (available free on Kindle Unlimited) and £6.99 for the paperback version.

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Loved your blog today Dad. Made me laugh and cry. Walking five hundred miles across Spain certainly provided lots to laugh about but Day twenty seven brought a few tears as well.

The only good thing that came out of the first Covid19-related lockdown, as far as Graeme Cook was concerned, was his discovering the existence of El Camino de Santiago, known as The Way, an ancient pilgrimage route from the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in the north west of Spain. Only recently unshackled from the world of working and for reasons he still doesn’t fully understand, he determined that this was a quest he must undertake and in the Spring of 2022 he and Mrs

C set forth with rucksacks on their backs to see if they really could walk five hundred miles to the tomb of Saint James. Spoiler alert: They made it. And not least because they had their guiding principles to, er, guide them along the way. Beer is good for you being the main one. Graeme wrote a daily blog to keep friends and family up to date with their progress. The blog also began to attract interest from further afield. Encouraged by positive feedback such as that from Susan (USA) below, Graeme decided to try his hand at writing a book about the whole adventure.

Thanks for sharing your journey. I’m now on a quest to convince my husband that we can indeed do this. All your references to beer stops is helping!

From having a near bust-up with Ernest Hemingway to meeting the invisible man, naked Germans, sophisticated Frenchmen, hunch-backed laboratory assistants, soppy knights, pizza-worshipping monks, the Camino family, the accommodation, the tears on Day twenty seven, the thrill of gazing up at Santiago Cathedral and of course a few beers along the way, it was the experience of a lifetime.

Whether you have walked The Way yourself, are planning to walk it or simply interested to learn a little more about it, this book will provide an insight like no other.

It will make you laugh. It might also make you cry.

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Alongside the real brains of the outfit the lovely Mrs C, Graeme is fortunate enough to spend his time flitting between Spain and the UK, indulging a newly found love for walking whilst remaining loyal to longer established relationships with beer and football. No longer working, when he’s not walking, watching football or drinking beer he is still trying to improve his spanish speaking skills, albeit not with the greatest of success but he’s nothing if not persistent. In between times, he thought he might try and write a book. Having now done so, he duly celebrated with a beer and then probably watched a football match. In addition to Mrs C, his carer team consists grown-up daughters Emily and Ellie. He loves them all even more than walking, football and beer added together. He is a very lucky guy.

As is the law when it comes to blokes of a certain age, Graeme is prone to bouts of grumpiness, cynicism and angst at the state of the world and occasionally vents off via his blog at El Real Thing (see below) and Twitter. Take pity on him. It comes to us all eventually.

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