The perfect song for a journey of self-discovery

Today is the dawn of something new and exciting, and I’m not just talking about the newly-wedded Wills and Kate!  Yeah ok, I’m not actually a huge fan of the Monarchy (hardly know them) but weddings are supposed to be romantic, happy occasions and this one just happened to be broadcast to several billion people so why not watch it!  And Kate’s dress was quite nice, very tasteful and elegant.  The reason why today is exciting is because I have a tingling scalp!  No, I’m not insane, it’s a side-effect of my new medication – Midodrine, which is supposed to be the best thing to help fix my low blood pressure issues.  Apparently the tingling scalp is the most common side-effect, lasts for about 1-2 weeks and is a pretty good indication that the dose is correct and it is working!   The downside is, these pills cost about as much as a latte per day.  But hey, they could give me my life back which would be completely worth the expense.

I finally got travel insurance yesterday through HBA, they give their health insurance members a 15% discount on travel insurance so that’s handy.  I finally acknowledged that no travel insurance company in their right mind would insure me for my various pre-existing conditions and gave up filling in medical assessment forms.  At least I have it if anything else goes wrong! And I got myself a pair of skinz 3/4 tights (compression active-wear) on my doctors recommendation to help my circulation while I’m walking.  It’s so exciting, in exactly 1 month and 2.5 hours I will be on a plane on my way to Paris!  Everything is falling into place and it is such a relief.  Soon I will be partaking in a millennia-old pilgrimage that has seen countless numbers of the devout (and not so devout) don their scallop shells and arrive footsore at Santiago de Compostela after walking for days on end.  Like many others, I am not quite sure what I am looking to find on the way but I know it is something profound and meaningful – if only to me.  Just the thought makes my scalp prickle with excitement – that or the pills, who knows!

All I know is – it just feels right.  I haven’t quite found a whole scallop shell to take with me but I still have time.  I have had ‘I’m on my way’ by the Proclaimers in my head since Thursday evening after seeing my Cardiologist.  Partly thanks to random playlists on my Mp3 player and partly thanks to Nat (mentioned in a previous post as the bringer of natural disasters) who was singing it last week.  Now the words feel like they were written just for me, for my journey.  I know it’s silly to think that but I’m sure everyone has had the same thought about a particular song and its relevance to their lives at a particular time.  Appropriate music tends to fall into my life on cue and I love it!  For anyone not familiar with the song here’s a youtube clip of it.  The clip is a bit odd – the band seems to have just discovered the effects of green/blue screen and got a little over excited, the clip was made in the 80’s where ginormous glasses were the norm and you also have to remember that they are Scottish so no, the lyrics are not actually ‘I’m on my wee’ even though it sounds like they are…

I think the verse – ‘I’ll do my best, I’ll do my best to do the best I can’ is particularly relevant to my journey.  But then again I find relevance in pretty much all the lyrics when I can understand what they’re singing!  The music of the Proclaimers takes me back a few years – my brother had an audio tape of their album ‘Sunshine on leith’ which included ‘I’m on my way’ and ‘I’m gonna be (500 miles)’ (that I’m sure everyone knows!) amongst other songs.  It was his favourite tape and we listened to it frequently particularly when we were ‘on our way’ to places by car.

I’m not going to say I have everything I need for my trip this time because when I do I inevitably find or hear about something else I need but I have to be getting close this time!  Nat, who seems to be in my posts a bit lately, found me another Camino-ists diary to read; one that was also written by an Australian and is proving to be rather amusing.  This book is called ‘Unholy Pilgrims’ and is written by a man named Tom Trumble.  It is a different style to ‘The year we seized the day‘ (the book that originally inspired my journey) but has been a great read so far.