As scarey as a bagful of Tarantulas

The last few months of my life have seen a steady diminution of my material possessions.

All my lendable stuff has been lent, my stashable stuff stashed, the flat sold.

I'm down to one 55 litre back pack.

I'm staying with friends, on a small olive and apricot farm near Rasquera, Catalunya, Spain.

I'm making the final preparations for the trek.

Tommorow I'll catch the Barcelona train 

to Irun, and from there I'll make my way to Hendaye, the border town between France and Spain on the Atlantic Coast.

From here I'm set to walk the High Route across the Pyrenees.

500 miles from the Atlantic to the Med. The route stays roughly on the central spine of  mountains that separate France and Spain.

There're mountain refuges along the way, and there's also a couple of remote sections, where you have to rely on your wits.

I wonder how I'll cope with the solitude, the navigation, the physicality of it all.

I have a bag of essentials and very few luxuries.

About a week ago, on the way down from the UK, I'd crossed the Pyrenees around Andorra and Ax les Therms in the car. As I reached the top of the pass the mountains wrapped themselves in a vicious storm, and became as scarey as a bagful of tarantulas.

It rattled me at the time,  and last night I dreamt that my bagful of high tech survival kit had turned into the metaphorical tarantulas, gibbering up at me as I attempted to make camp for the night.

I grimace, steel myself, make a final check through the bag.

It's compartmentalized in dry bags. I have 'wardrobe' for sox and a spare T-shirt. I have 'office' for maps, and the luxury kindle, 'hardware' for the Sat nav and solar charger. There's a 'larder' too, a first aid kit, an ultra light weight tent the size of a bottle of coke, a tiny stove, crampons for the higher sections .... And not a tarantula in sight.

It doesn't seem much for 500 miles but it weighs over 15 kg.

But it's ready. I'm ready. I hope I'm ready enough. And if not. Well. I'm coming anyway, like we used to say as kids, when we played 'hide and seek'.

 'Coming, ready or not'.

Writing this, I realise that I've the same overwhelming mixture of sensations, now, as I had then, squashed in the airing cupboard or wherever, and they're taking short cuts between my mind and stomach.

Anticipation, delight, excitment and fear.

A heady combination.

I think back a couple of days. Barbara, my friend from Rasquera and I had been on the coast for lunch, and we'd spotted this sculpture at l'Ametlla de Mar.

Now then, I wonder, if I had legs s long as this, what would I be feeling now?

To be able to walk like the Gods, amongst the Heather Hollows of High Hills, and to take one's rests, with such elegance.

To tackle the mountains with style. That's what I'd like to do. Even if my legs are pint sized, human, and 53 years old to boot.

To tackle the mountIns with style. As my favourite poet, Charles Bukowski might have said; 'That is what I call art'.