- Time of past OR future Camino
- Several and counting...
An ovine (or hircine) incident. (RIP)
or Can you name five famous Belgians?
I'm separating this, but I'll link to it from my Live from the Camino thread.
First of all a little bit of background. I was born in Liverpool which could make me English. I come from a100% Irish background, which could make me Irish. I live in Ireland at the moment. I'm delighted to say that I am not participating in the sadness and madness which is Brexit. [Very seriously I want to add that I fully respect the decision of those who voted in the referendum.] I am neither a 'west Brit' nor a 'little Englander'. You'll need to get an Irish person explain to you what a west Brit is.
I can tell you about little Englanders.
More than 40 years ago as a student I was attached to an eminent surgeon. One of his fields of expertise was something which is not meal time conversation. He had developed a technique for dealing with recalcitrant and recurrent piles (haemorrhoids). He had received a knighthood, it was widely believed, for bringing long sought relief to a member of the Royal Family.
Britain joined the EEC in 1973 and an early result was reciprocal health care. 'Sir' - let's call him that - did a monthly clinic in Germany to see their most difficult cases. So it was that strangely in those insular days there were usually three or four Germans on the ward receiving the very best of British surgical care - by royal appointment. The little Englanders were in the adjacent beds, complaining bitterly. Less than 30 years previously they and the Germans had been bombing each other. And indeed the East End of London where I trained had suffered grievously - though less, for instance, than Dresden. You can imagine for yourself some of the conversations that went on on the ward. The milk of human kindness was not flowing too freely.
Being international was still quite a new idea in those days. At school for instance we learned French, but never with any great notion that we might ever meet a French person to say hello to. Some of the press in UK remains a little insular. And the attitude to foreigners is not always, even now, terribly open. There is still a fading sense of empire, sustained sometimes by putting other nations down. It can sound unkind, thought perhaps there is also a sort of grudging affection as well.
A simple example of this I think is the question which crops up for instance in the "silly season" in some newspapers is "Can anyone name five famous Belgians?" - the implication being of course that we can all name 500 famous Brits.
The answers are commonly 1. Hercules Poirot 2. TinTin. er......3. Jean Claude Van Damme 4. Vincent Kompany 5. Forum members here can add in our own @SabineP (Of course there are thousands!! We just are not good at recognising them). OK. In case you don't know neither of the first two actually exist, but they are undoubtedly very famous.
In my "live on the Camino thread" on the Camino de Madrid forum, you can read about my discovery, loss and re-discovery of five famous Belgians. On this very day. The excitement of reuniting was a pleasant event, I venture to say, for all of us.
In the afternoon, after our lunch at the bar, we went back to the albergue in Villeguillo. The girls played cards for a while. I had a little nap. The girls went out and sat on the step, watching life go buy - they hoped - In a very small pueblo.
One of the neighbours walked along outside the albergue accompanied by either a large white goat or a medium sized non-woolly white sheep. I have explained elsewhere (a bovine incident) my own views on, and lack of rapport with, farm amimals. Across the road a dog barked, but was not worrying the sheep. Or goat.
What happened next will probably sound like it is made up, but it is not.
The sheep (or goat) dropped dead. Just like that.
On the doorstep of the albergue.
Finally and definitively.
To paraphrase Monty Python, "not resting, dead." To directly quote Lady Macbeth "Woe alas! What in our house?" Well, yes; or at least on our doorstep.
The old man with the sheep was stoic, but obviously a bit upset. It seemed not appropriate to pin him down on whether it was a sheep (ovine) or a goat (hircine) in the circumstances. He covered the sheep with a cloth while he went off to get a trailer and his car to take away the body. That was that. In the midst of life we are in death. Country folk take this sort of thing in their stride I guess.
So it was a day of mixed emotions. Like the prodigal son's father, I rejoiced that the five Belgian women who "were lost have been found."(Luke 15:24) But we were saddened a little at the fate of the sheep. Or goat.
The bar closed early (8pm) and we retired early. There was a full moon that night. Next morning sunrise was long before moonset, making for a beautiful morning photo. Life goes on.
I will always now know 'five famous Belgians': Els, Annie, Marie, Brigitte and Marleen. For full disclosure, I will again state that Marleen is not 'a famous Belgian', she is a famous Dutch lady. And indeed a successful and famous author. But that would be to complicate the story.
Again, no animals were treated cruelly during this account. But one did die. RIP.
You can read here about an unrelated bovine incident.
or Can you name five famous Belgians?
I'm separating this, but I'll link to it from my Live from the Camino thread.
First of all a little bit of background. I was born in Liverpool which could make me English. I come from a100% Irish background, which could make me Irish. I live in Ireland at the moment. I'm delighted to say that I am not participating in the sadness and madness which is Brexit. [Very seriously I want to add that I fully respect the decision of those who voted in the referendum.] I am neither a 'west Brit' nor a 'little Englander'. You'll need to get an Irish person explain to you what a west Brit is.
I can tell you about little Englanders.
More than 40 years ago as a student I was attached to an eminent surgeon. One of his fields of expertise was something which is not meal time conversation. He had developed a technique for dealing with recalcitrant and recurrent piles (haemorrhoids). He had received a knighthood, it was widely believed, for bringing long sought relief to a member of the Royal Family.
Britain joined the EEC in 1973 and an early result was reciprocal health care. 'Sir' - let's call him that - did a monthly clinic in Germany to see their most difficult cases. So it was that strangely in those insular days there were usually three or four Germans on the ward receiving the very best of British surgical care - by royal appointment. The little Englanders were in the adjacent beds, complaining bitterly. Less than 30 years previously they and the Germans had been bombing each other. And indeed the East End of London where I trained had suffered grievously - though less, for instance, than Dresden. You can imagine for yourself some of the conversations that went on on the ward. The milk of human kindness was not flowing too freely.
Being international was still quite a new idea in those days. At school for instance we learned French, but never with any great notion that we might ever meet a French person to say hello to. Some of the press in UK remains a little insular. And the attitude to foreigners is not always, even now, terribly open. There is still a fading sense of empire, sustained sometimes by putting other nations down. It can sound unkind, thought perhaps there is also a sort of grudging affection as well.
A simple example of this I think is the question which crops up for instance in the "silly season" in some newspapers is "Can anyone name five famous Belgians?" - the implication being of course that we can all name 500 famous Brits.
The answers are commonly 1. Hercules Poirot 2. TinTin. er......3. Jean Claude Van Damme 4. Vincent Kompany 5. Forum members here can add in our own @SabineP (Of course there are thousands!! We just are not good at recognising them). OK. In case you don't know neither of the first two actually exist, but they are undoubtedly very famous.
In my "live on the Camino thread" on the Camino de Madrid forum, you can read about my discovery, loss and re-discovery of five famous Belgians. On this very day. The excitement of reuniting was a pleasant event, I venture to say, for all of us.
In the afternoon, after our lunch at the bar, we went back to the albergue in Villeguillo. The girls played cards for a while. I had a little nap. The girls went out and sat on the step, watching life go buy - they hoped - In a very small pueblo.
One of the neighbours walked along outside the albergue accompanied by either a large white goat or a medium sized non-woolly white sheep. I have explained elsewhere (a bovine incident) my own views on, and lack of rapport with, farm amimals. Across the road a dog barked, but was not worrying the sheep. Or goat.
What happened next will probably sound like it is made up, but it is not.
The sheep (or goat) dropped dead. Just like that.
On the doorstep of the albergue.
Finally and definitively.
To paraphrase Monty Python, "not resting, dead." To directly quote Lady Macbeth "Woe alas! What in our house?" Well, yes; or at least on our doorstep.
The old man with the sheep was stoic, but obviously a bit upset. It seemed not appropriate to pin him down on whether it was a sheep (ovine) or a goat (hircine) in the circumstances. He covered the sheep with a cloth while he went off to get a trailer and his car to take away the body. That was that. In the midst of life we are in death. Country folk take this sort of thing in their stride I guess.
So it was a day of mixed emotions. Like the prodigal son's father, I rejoiced that the five Belgian women who "were lost have been found."(Luke 15:24) But we were saddened a little at the fate of the sheep. Or goat.
The bar closed early (8pm) and we retired early. There was a full moon that night. Next morning sunrise was long before moonset, making for a beautiful morning photo. Life goes on.
I will always now know 'five famous Belgians': Els, Annie, Marie, Brigitte and Marleen. For full disclosure, I will again state that Marleen is not 'a famous Belgian', she is a famous Dutch lady. And indeed a successful and famous author. But that would be to complicate the story.
Again, no animals were treated cruelly during this account. But one did die. RIP.
You can read here about an unrelated bovine incident.
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!
. Maybe it was a Scape Goat (Leviticus 16.8)
I will be back with the herd at the end of the month and was looking forward to giving it a go!
