Nuala McCann: The camino was no picnic this year – just as well I didn’t go

I drove down to pick up my friend after her week on the camino.

Her bus was due to pull in at the service station on the opposite side of the motorway from the one where I dropped her – walking poles and a clatter of etcetera – a week earlier.

The stations are like identical twins, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, squatting on each side of the carriageways.

“There’s probably a tunnel under the road for the staff to dash back and forth,” my friend said.

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Imagine the shop assistants clutching trays of cinnamon swirls and blueberry muffins and racing under the road.

“Just like the old tunnel between Crumlin Road courthouse and the jail,” I told her.

The prisoners ducked their heads as they stepped up into the light of the old courtroom dock, squinting at the judge and the lawyers in their wigs and us gentle people of the press, waiting in dusty sunshine.

Now the courthouse is an ancient wreck, weeds bristling from every orifice. But the jail opposite is a Tripadvisor special – you might even get married there.

A friend once confessed he went to Kilmainham jail for his stag do. I could see Connolly rise up from his chair at the thought.

I was at station Tweedledee nice and early on that summer evening last week to collect my camino friend.

I’m always early. My mother said she went into the Cottage Hospital at the first twinge of labour, had me within half an hour and was back in the bed in time for tea and toast served by the hospital cook.

I’m always early. My mother said she went into the Cottage Hospital at the first twinge of labour, had me within half an hour and was back in the bed in time for tea and toast served by the hospital cook

That cook was a legend – it was almost worth having the baby for two weeks of her food.

Back at the service station my friend texted: “Flight delayed get a coffee.”

So I went into the service station. It was like the twilight zone. It was exactly the same as the one across the road – only difference was last time it was in daylight and this time it was at night.

“I feel like I’ve been away for a month,” texted my camino friend from somewhere south of Newry.

“I feel like I’m in groundhog day, it’s the exact same place only it’s leapfrogged over this side of the road,” I texted back.

The station had an eerie, late-night diner feel - like that lonely Hopper painting, Nighthawks.

It was dusk, someone was working at a faraway till, the cafe was half lit and empty, giant trucks squatted in shadowy parking bays outside.

When my friend tumbled off the coach, she informed me that this camino had not been a picnic. The one we did last year – the Portuguese route – that was a five-star picnic, that was pure gravy. This one had more of a purgatorial feel.

The first day brought thunder, rain, hailstones, sunshine. “Four seasons, like in the pizza,” I said.

She didn’t smile. She was on a roll.

That first day’s climb over the Pyrenees wasn’t two Slieve Donards, it was more like four.

“It was a 10-hour hike,” she said. “There were crosses on those mountains where people died. I thought I might be adding one of my own.”

It seems that God is truly merciful and there is a reason for my current affliction.

“Thank God I have the long Covid and couldn’t go,” I said.

I had been a bit jealous waving her off on the camino bus with all our friends the week before. But clearly, having to watch from a distance had a silver lining.

Still, she had a lovely time, she said. She even ran into a few bulls in Pamplona. The epsom salts and uddermint came in very handy.

“Next year, I’ll come,” I promised.

After all it’s a long way off and it definitely won’t be over the Pyrenees.