Today it’s three days until I fly out. Getting there will take a bit of time, but I don’t mind – I get to stay in Santiago one evening and morning, see some of Spain on the bus, arrive in time to have a meal with other pilgrims.
Thinking about packing (yes, still) and how to dress for the journey, since it will take me from a chilly Liverpool to sunny Santiago and I only have two sets of clothes to choose from, I remembered the sage advice to always get good shoes and a good bed, because if you’re not in one, you’re in the other. On the camino your day is divided not in two, but in three parts: walking, resting, sleeping. I’d like to be as comfortable as possible in all three, with minimal weight.
I have been concentrating on the walking and resting, but with some swappability, ie if the day is hot and the evening is chilly or vice versa, I can cover that. But what if it is wet and cold all day, so my walking gear is wet and might not even dry by morning, and it is still cold in the evening? Have I got enough layers to cover that? And if I do, have I got something warm to sleep in too? Ditto for blistering hot weather – I don’t want to be left with merino and a down jacket because everything else is drying on the line!
The answer is, naturally, some sort of kit tetris. I could just dump everything on the bed and group and regroup clothes combinations, but I happen to live with someone who likes to sleep in the bed regularly, which would upset my tetris board. Instead I have put thumbnail pics of my major clothes items on the desktop of my laptop, so I can move them nerdily around into different configurations. Now I can move my wet/cold weather outfit to the top and actually see what I have left to wear if it is cold in the evening or at night. Surprisingly this has led to four items ending up on the stay-at-home list! Some of them will probably make their way back into the pack, but still – kit tetris works! I might even do one of those packing list spread out photos before I go!
Somewhere Slowly 