– to the people in our lives whom we love.
– to the people in our lives who love us.
– for the beauty each day brings.
– for the joys each day brings.
– for the opportunities all around us.
– for our health.
– for our illnesses.
– for music that moves us.
– for pets that love us.
– for being free.
– for being alive.
photo:
A walk to Paradise Garden – by W. Eugene Smith
I still haven’t heard back from Sister Clare, despite public and private entreaties to her.
It seems like she might be gone for good from this blog.
It’s time maybe now for me to reflect more generally on what happened, and the aftermath.
I’ve spoken of the emotional toll on me, so I won’t go into that. But some people privately have asked – why did I engage with Sister Clare from the outset? I’m not a Catholic, and I’m not conventionally religious. So why bring her onto this blog, and give her Moderator Permissions on the forum?
I don’t really know. I am not a nun guy. This is the first time I’ve had anything to do with nuns, other than a cursory hello when I’m at funerals and weddings where nuns are in attendance.
Actually, I tell a fib.
I was talking to my mother the other day. After coming back from the trip. I was born in London – my parents are both Australian, but at the time of my birth they were working in London as dentists. Doing the Australian thing of working overseas before settling back down in Aussie.
My mother asked if I’d taken the time to visit the hospital where I was born – at Wimbledon. I told her I hadn’t – anyway I thought the hospital had burnt down. She said no – It’s St. Anne’s Hospital. You should go visit it next time you’re in London.
I asked what kind of hospital it was, and she said Catholic.
This was a complete surprise to me. My parents were/are Anglican, and I remember growing up aware that they had a pretty sniffy attitude towards Catholics. You have to remember this was Brisbane in the 1950s. Very conservative.
My mother told me that I was brought into the world by Catholic nuns. I was stunned. I had no idea. And I found this out only a couple of days ago.
Weird, huh?
Anyway, getting back on point – I saw no harm in engaging with a nun on the blog, then later on the forum. And I thought it might be good for those who are Catholic, and are religious, to have a nun to chat to, and get advice from.
But later I started to have some misgivings.
Privately Sister Clare began telling me some harrowing stories – often emphasising her poverty. And as I stated in one of the Strange Tale posts, she also began to take umbrage at some of you folk on the blog. She asked me at times to admonish those she thought had treated her with disrespect.
But she was enormously popular on the blog, and I had no real grounds to bring her into line, and so I let things slide.
Susan Sande then organised the Kit the Nun campaign, and some of you responded with enormous generosity. Sister Clare blossomed during this time. Publicly and privately, she gushed with gratitude.
I didn’t realise that Susan was sending the goods collected onto Sister Clare. I thought she was holding them until closer to the tour. When I discovered that she was forwarding stuff, I contacted Susan and asked her not to – to hold onto the stuff until I told her it was okay to on-send.
I told Susan at the time that I was concerned that Sister Clare might not be able to make the tour, for health reasons. And this was true. But my deeper concern was one of credibility.
It was around this time that Sister Clare told me she needed $500 urgently to attend the Retreat – and if she couldn’t pay the Retreat fees she would be expelled from her Order.
This sent up some immediate red flags for me. I saw it as a thinly disguised plea for money. When I told her I wasn’t in a position to send her that $500, she immediately came back saying: “Oh Bill, I would NEVER ask you for money…”
Huh.
So when the email came in saying she’d been robbed – I was immediately suspicious. Rght from the first email. I then set about trying to determine whether she was telling the truth. For me, the key was the Police Report, which she claimed she had filed. If I could prove there was no Police Report, then I could prove that she’d lied to me. So I employed my dormant journalistic skills to determine the truth.
Okay – you all know the rest of the story.
During those posts the stats on the blog went nuts. A lot of people tuned in. And some tuned out, too. There are some people who were regulars here who I haven’t heard from since. Who comes to the blog and who goes never worries me. Numbers come and go.
It’s of passing interest, but that’s not why I post.
I can’t now take Sister Clare on the tour. She was presented as a Spiritual Counsellor, and I can’t in good conscience offer up as that, knowing that she used her vows as a nun to try and justify her lies to me.
That to me is the worst thing that Sister Clare did during the whole episode. I lost respect for her after that. I can forgive her, but I’m not sure if that respect will ever be fully restored.
What did I learn?
I learnt a lot about the veil of the internet. I thought I knew Sister Clare – but then I realised that perhaps I didn’t know her at all. Is her gravatar picture really her? I remember now very early on, I wanted to speak to her to check her out, and I suggested we Skype. She didn’t want to do that – claimed she didn’t know how Skype worked.
She might have been right – I put it down to nuns being technologically challenged – and didn’t think anything more of it. But later I began to wonder – perhaps she didn’t want me to see her face?
And then Ingrid, making several attempts to come and see Sister Clare – always being rebuffed for one reason or another. Did Sister Clare not want Ingrid dropping in because she would see that she wasn’t the person in the photo?
I have no idea. But it all made me think.
Perhaps the most important thing I learned from the episode though was to consider a black and white issue in subtler shades of grey.
A nun lied to me. Black & white.
But does she have mental health issues? Does her relationship with her handicapped son impact on her state of mind – her behaviour? Were the lies important in the whole scheme of things? Was she only seeking attention, approval, sympathy, love – as she later claimed? And if so, can the lies be forgiven?
There’s still a lot for me to process.
The black & white of me is that I publicly persecuted a nun. That’s nothing to be proud of.
I’m not going to put that in my CV.
Bill Bennett.
During our scout for the April Camino tour, my wife and I found our local liaison person –
Her name is Catarina – she lives in Arcos right on the Portuguese Way. She is a lawyer by training, doing post graduate studies, as well as working with her mother and her partner in their beautiful boutique hotel, catering for pilgrims.
Catarina is a delightful young lady. She’s quick to laugh, and my wife and I were immediately impressed with her energy, enthusiasm, and her people skills.
We’d just flown in from London, driven from Porto airport in heavy rain, and we were frazzled. Catarina made us feel immediately at home – and could not have been more welcoming.
She speaks Portuguese (doh) and Spanish, as well as English. She can drive the support vehicle, and I believe she will bring a wonderful fresh energy to the tour group.
Jennifer and I are thrilled that she’s agreed to join us…
Well, this blog never ceases to amaze me.
A woman named Dorothy Miller has just posted a very aggressive and threatening comment, accusing me of spying on you all, and tracking you.
I’ve not heard from this Dorothy Miller before. I’ve done a search of all 9,000 comments made on this blog, and this is the first time she’s appeared.
Here’s what she said, in case you mised it –
Bill,
On the last 3 visits to this blog my McAfee internet security 2014 alarm bells went off. According to the McAfee internet security application, you are including hidden malware and spyware within your postings.
If so, why are you tracking and spying on your visitors to this website?
If you’re unwilling/unable to give me a plausible explanation, in public, then you will leave me with no other choice than to post these allegations, including screenshots, on Ivar’s Camino blog to warn potential visitors coming to this blog.
I got directed to your weblog from your postings on Ivar’s Camino blog, so I think he should become aware of these disturbing issues.
Dorothy
So she’s not only accusing me of using malware to spy on you, she’s also threatening to go to Ivar’s forum and announce to all the folks there that I’m a scoundrel using malware to spy and track you.
For a start, why would I do that? This WordPress blog, like every WordPress blog, has inbuilt software that gives me data of how many visits the blog has had each day, what posts are most visited, etc.
WordPress call this “Stats,” and it’s an inbuilt function of every WordPress blog.
This is no different from Google Analytics, which anyone who has a website uses as a matter of course. So if I already have this function built into the blog, as supplied by WordPress, then why would I need separate spyware?
And why would this Dorothy Miller suddenly appear on this blog out of the blue and make such aggressive accusations and threats?
Is she part of this “Satan” mob that’s trying to destabilise this blog?
I notice that Brendan, who is a regular here, has responded that he has two different computers running two different systems, both with security software that is highly sensitive to malware etc, and he hasn’t had a problem.
Can I ask all of you, have any of you had a similar problem to what this Dorothy lady is complaining about? If so, then please let me know immediately and I’ll check it out.
If not, then I would say that Dorothy Miller is a “troll,” intent on besmirching me and this blog.
Bill Bennett
I’ve been doing yoga for over two decades now.
I started because I was getting chronic back pain from several metal plates screwed into my lower spine – the residue of a car accident in which I was a passenger in a car that got totalled after hitting a telegraph pole.
Yoga fixed the back pain, and I discovered a whole lot of other benefits too, including increased flexibility, better breathing (larger lung capacity), a sense of calm, and regular yoga reduces your appetite. You don’t feel as hungry. It’s as though the yoga re-configures your digestive system so that you need less food to operate efficiently. Consequently you lose weight.
The thing that a lot of people, especially men, don’t understand about yoga – you get the same benefits whether or not you do a pose perfectly, or whether you just attempt the pose. In other words, you don’t need to be an elite practitioner to get benefits from yoga.
For about six years I was a devotee of Bikram Yoga. It’s very hard-core, very intense, and it’s done in a hot room – the temperature up around 38C, if I remember right. And I’ll tell you, it’s damn hard!
Bikram Yoga is done to a very strict routine, and to a “narration” which has to be followed exactly, word for word. If the teacher, who runs the class, is even out one sentence, then that teacher can be expelled from ever teaching Bikram again.
I loved the rigour of Bikram. I loved it so much I was seriously going to do the teaching course in Los Angeles. On the occasions I was in LA for work, I did classes there, and the teaching course was reputed to be incredibly tough. That appealed to me. But then Jennifer and I moved out of Sydney and there were no Bikram schools in Mudgee, so I haven’t done it since. But I still keep up a daily practice at home – and each day I feel better for it.
Here is an article from the Washington Post. It makes for interesting reading…
At a recent visit to a yoga studio, I watched as practitioners breathed, bent, twisted and stretched their way to a happier state. They left more relaxed, more energised, with better posture and a renewed outlook. But there was one curious thing: of the 24 people in the room, only four were men.
Yoga devotees say that this disparity is not unusual, no matter the time of day. Typically, they say, the ratio of women to men rarely goes much below 80-20. In fact, a 2012 survey byYoga Journal found that of the 20.4 million people who practise yoga in the United States, only 18 per cent of them were men.
Why don’t men do yoga?
“My husband said he felt bored,” says one woman whose partner was visiting the Washington studio on a day off. “He didn’t let himself enjoy it.”
She is like many women who do yoga and want their spouse or partner to give it a try. But the many myths about yoga stand in their way: Yoga isn’t a decent workout; it’s too touchy-feely; you have to be flexible to do it; men’s bodies just aren’t built for pretzel-like poses.
Adrian Hummell has heard all the excuses.
“What happens is, a guy who doesn’t know about it associates it with things like pilates or aerobics,” says Hummell, who has been doing yoga for the past three years and now teaches Bikram yoga, a particularly strenuous form of the practice, in Maryland. They think of it as a “women’s workout”, he says.
“It’s almost a joke when guys say, ‘I don’t think I should do yoga because I’m not flexible,’ ” he says. “It’s like saying, ‘I’m too weak, so I can’t lift weights.’ “
Hummell and many other yoga practitioners extol its many benefits beyond a pleasant post-class buzz. Several studies have linked a regimen of yoga classes to a reduction in lower back pain and improved back function. Other studies suggest that practicing yoga lowers heart rate and blood pressure; helps relieve anxiety, depression and insomnia, and improves overall physical fitness, strength and flexibility, according to the US National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a branch of the National Institutes of Health. Still, despite many studies, no firm evidence has been found to show that yoga improves asthma or arthritis.
The centre is funding research to determine whether yoga can benefit in the treatment of diabetes, AIDS, post-traumatic stress disorder and multiple sclerosis.
Loren Fishman, a Manhattan physician who sees patients suffering from a variety of ills, says his prescription is often yoga.
Fishman has written several books on using yoga as a supplement for rather than as a substitute for medicine. He has studied yoga since the early 1970s and noted that the practice was developed centuries ago by men in India. But its modern form has become feminised.
“There’s been a flip,” Fishman says. “When it came to the US, yoga became a sort of gentle gym, a non-competitive, non-confrontational thing that’s good for you. Yoga has this distinctive passive air to it. You get into the pose and stay there.”
Among those who reject the idea that yoga is just for women is Danny Poole, a Denver teacher and trainer who uses yoga to help athletes. In 2009, his students included about a dozen members of the Denver Broncos.
Poole came to the practice reluctantly himself. A basketball player at Grand Valley State University in Michigan four decades ago, he was dragged into a yoga class by his girlfriend.
“All I knew is that there were hippies doing it, and I was intimidated because I didn’t know what it was,” Poole said. “Then I got hooked on it because I never felt so good.” Poole kept up with yoga and said it helped him avoid sports injuries as he grew older. About 15 years ago, he went full-time as a teacher.
Poole decided to drop some of the elements of a traditional yoga class that could turn off men: no chanting, no Sanskrit terms for poses, no music, no headstands or handstands that are difficult and prone to causing injury. “I keep it easy and gentle, and I avoid trying to make the client not look good,” he said.
Poole says professional athletes like yoga because it keeps them loose and focused before a game and helps ease post-game soreness. During his year with the Broncos, he says, he kept his yoga group injury-free. But he understands why many men, especially former athletes and men who have spent years pumping iron, have trouble with the physical and mental aspects of yoga.
“Athletes with big muscles take a regular yoga class and it kicks their butt,” Poole says. “They tend not to come back.” But Poole said that those who stuck with the yoga program remained injury-free during the football season, which turned the doubters into converts.
When men say they are bored with yoga, Poole thinks there may be something else going on.
“Our egos are deflated because we can’t do some of the poses,” he said.
The Washington Post
And then this, from the Telegraph in London –
Forty-eight hours after their win over England in the opening match of the Rugby League World Cup last month, the Kangaroos went for a warm-down at Manchester’s Yoga Lounge, a fitness studio dedicated to yoga and pilates.
Here, Bikram yoga, the “hot” kind that’s performed in a super-heated room to ensure an instant sweat and enable deeper stretches, is a speciality. And 40 per cent of those attending classes are male.
The Australian team are not alone in striking a sweaty yoga pose to speed their post-match recovery, improve general flexibility and guard against injury. Their English opponents have also supplemented their training with the ancient discipline at the insistence of Mark Bitcon, head of performance with the national team as well as at the Wigan Warriors rugby league club.
“It’s not about lying around on a mat,” says Bitcon. “It’s an intense physical workout which has numerous positive benefits. There’s a lot of work with weights in rugby league, plus intense, competitive action. In the past, we tended to neglect the flexibility aspect.”
The old-world, macho view that “yoga is for girls”, or at the very least only for blokes who are a “bit spiritual”, is history.
This season, Wasps, the London rugby union club, has introduced yoga sessions for its players.
Manchester United’s veteran winger, Ryan Giggs, who turns 40 this month, is such a talisman for its benefits he has released his own yoga-for-men DVD.
Andy Murray has credited Wimbledon-winning frame to Bikram.
But the elite sportsmen that yoga attracts aren’t interested in the path to enlightenment. “What they are interested in is prolonging their career,” says Nisha Srivastava, instructor at the Yoga Lounge.
“If they can tap into that 1 per cent that enhances their game, they become interested. When they see the benefits of yoga, that’s when they persevere with it.”
Wasps and England forward James Haskell, 28, who has been practising for three years, admits: “I’m not there to get my chakras aligned – I use yoga to give me an advantage in my game and to keep me on the field.”
Haskell is convinced of its benefits.
“When I was 18, I’d just go straight out and train hard. Now my first port of call is to get out the mat – otherwise I’m like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. I seize up.”
Dense muscle is notoriously inflexible, but the benefits from yoga-style stretching are measurable. “We test various physiological aspects, and one is range of flexibility,” says Bitcon. “We have seen as much as an extra couple of centimetres in areas like the hamstring. Any marginal improvement in an area like that can be very useful.”
It can also improve upper-body stabilisation, especially around the shoulders, where players grapple.
It’s not hard to sell men poses, or “asanas” – such as the Warrior or the Hero – but yoga has other advantages, explains Srivastava.
“The work we do appears to be purely physical, but the goal is the mind, and that’s where it can be most beneficial. If they can control their mind, learn to concentrate, then they will make more correct decisions on the pitch.”
Nick Chadd, the strength and conditioning coach who introduced Wasps players to yoga, says: “We have found it has a real impact on the way the guys perform, and that comes from aspects of relaxation and focus. It also improves mood and interaction among the group.”
The Telegraph, London
I have to admit the whole Sister Clare episode took a big toll on me –
I’m sure it took a bigger toll on her.
It was all so unnecessary.
It was unnecessary for her to lie to me, it was unnecessary for her to try and manipulate me into believing her increasingly irrational story, and it was completely unnecessary for her to use her vows as a nun, and hence her relationship with the church and with God, to justify her position.
On my part, it was probably unnecessary that I publish the whole thing. I could have swallowed it. But I did feel a responsibility to you people on this blog. Particularly those who had given or pledged goods to her for the tour.
Also, when she started to secretly email some of you on this blog, and put her side of the story, I felt then it was important that BOTH sides of the story be revealed, so that you all could make a fully informed decision as to her credibility.
All that said, the whole thing made me sick to the stomach.
At a time when Jennifer and I were travelling overseas, it made me feel depressed and very melancholic. And it also chewed up a huge amount of time – time that could have been better spent doing happier things.
I had trusted her – as you all had.
Why did she do it? Only she knows. Was she seeking love? Attention? Sympathy? Or was it a devious ploy to try and elicit some money from me?
Who knows? Perhaps it was a combination of all of the above.
But that’s just speculation.
I offered Sister Clare a guest post so she could put her side of the story, but I haven’t heard back from her. I prompted her with an email yesterday, to remind her that she had a guest post available whenever she wanted – and I gave her an undertaking I would not edit what she wrote, nor would I make comment.
Still nothing back from her.
Has the episode tarnished, tainted this blog – as some of you privately have suggested?
You tell me.
I must admit, I’ve been seriously thinking about shutting the blog down, particularly when I get idiots like this cowardly “Satan” making jibes at me. But if I did that, then I’d just be letting the “Satans” of the world win.
I wouldn’t want that.
Despite all this, I have enormous affection for Sister Clare, still – and I can only think that the reason she did what she did was because she must be in enormous pain.
She does have a severely handicapped son, and very few of us would truly know what kind of pressure that places on someone. Every day must be emotionally draining.
If Sister Clare’s stories about her background are to be believed, then she too has had a very tough life. Again, that can manifest later in behaviour outside the norm.
So I guess what I’m saying is that there are factors at play here that I’m not fully privy to, and that’s why I make no judgement of Sister Clare, and that’s why I have forgiven her.
I do implore her to come back to this blog, because if I can forgive her, and if some of you can forgive her too, then there will be some upside to the trauma and ugliness of what happened…
That’s what I look for in all this – a way for me to grow as a person. Already she has provided me with that opportunity, and I hope to learn more from her too –
She came into my life for a reason. I’m still not sure what that reason is…
Bill Bennett.
I went for a walk today –
This came up on my playlist.
Thought of you Satan…
Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste I've been around for a long, long year Stole many a mans soul and faith And I was round when jesus christ Had his moment of doubt and pain Made damn sure that pilate Washed his hands and sealed his fate Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name But what's puzzling you Is the nature of my game I stuck around st. petersburg When I saw it was a time for a change Killed the czar and his ministers Anastasia screamed in vain I rode a tank Held a generals rank When the blitzkrieg raged And the bodies stank Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name, oh yeah Ah, what's puzzling you Is the nature of my game, oh yeah I watched with glee While your kings and queens Fought for ten decades For the gods they made I shouted out, Who killed the kennedys? When after all It was you and me Let me please introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste And I laid traps for troubadours Who get killed before they reached bombay Pleased to meet you Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah But what's puzzling you Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby Pleased to meet you Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah But what's confusing you Is just the nature of my game Just as every cop is a criminal And all the sinners saints As heads is tails Just call me lucifer Cause I'm in need of some restraint So if you meet me Have some courtesy Have some sympathy, and some taste Use all your well-learned politesse Or I'll lay your soul to waste, um yeah Pleased to meet you Hope you guessed my name, um yeah But what's puzzling you Is the nature of my game, um mean it, get down Woo, who Oh yeah, get on down Oh yeah Oh yeah! Tell me baby, what's my name Tell me honey, can ya guess my name Tell me baby, what's my name I tell you one time, you're to blame... Sympathy for the Devil Rolling Stones
I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Bavaria over the years.
For a while there, I was a consultant to a large film fund based out of Munich. German money has supported quite a few of my previous films. I’ve also had a career retrospective at the prestigious Hof Film Festival, near the Czech Republic border.
They flew me out and put me up as their guest for about ten days. I had a great time, spoiled only by my having to sit through all my films, which was excruciating!
On this trip, Jennifer and I flew into Frankfurt and drove directly to a small town on the Rhine called Rudesheim – which I’ve noted was an important town on the German Camino. (I didn’t realise this until I saw a Camino symbol on the town’s church.)
We then spent the weekend in Heidelberg before heading on to Munich where I was to meet with a financier.
Each town and city was preparing for its Christmas Markets, which officially commence on November 28th. These markets are wooden stalls which are erected usually in the town squares, or in the areas around the central church or Cathedral.
On previous occasions I’ve been in Bavaria just before Christmas and seen these markets in action. They sell all things Christmassy – including beautiful hand-made glass blown baubles, hand carved wooden Nativity sets, glassware containing candles, the glass hand-painted with beautiful Christmas imagery – and of course Gluhwein, which can be deceptively potent.
So it was unfortunate we missed the markets by less than a week. Even so, Bavaria was in Christmas mode, and all the shops were decked out with Yuletide displays.
Driving in Germany is always challenging.
On the autobahns there’s no speed limit. Usually they are three lanes – in the far right-hand lane you have the slow trucks, in the middle lane you have the cars that are passing the trucks, and in the far left-hand lane are the rocketships.
These are the cars that whizz past at speeds well in excess of 200kms/hr. I was regularly passed while traveling at 150kms/hr – and the cars that passed me left me standing still. Some I estimated were traveling at about 250kms/hr. These were high performance Mercs and BMWs and Audis – cars that in Australia sell for more than $300,000.
When you have vehicles traveling at that speed, you have to be very careful. It requires full concentration, particularly when it’s raining hard and you have slippery roads and poor visibility, as it was on several occasions.
You’d think the rocketships would slow down in conditions like this, but no. There were times when I had to shift over into the rocketship lane to pass a slow car, and I would look in my rearview and see a dot in the distance behind me – next moment that dot is a vehicle which is tailgating me at 170kms/hr! Literally sitting on my back bumper. It freaked me out.
The food is heavy high calorie grub with thick cream-based sauces, noodles, and plenty of pork. In cold weather it’s perfect, and makes sense. The food I like best though in Bavaria is simple fare – sausages, sauerkraut, weissbeir (white beer) and pretzels.
The German sausages are unlike any you’ll find elsewhere. And washed down with a low alcohol weissbeir, it’s one of my favourite food groups!
At this time of the year you get local game on the menus too – boar, goose, wild duck. One of my better meals in Heidelberg was roasted wild guinea fowl – with pine nuts and grapes and mashed potatoes. Followed by home made strudel. Yummy.
Germany is much more expensive than either Portugal or Spain. Then again, the German economy has been supporting those other two countries for a while now. There’s a 19% tax on most things, including meals. Unlike Portugal or Spain where you can get a fabulous three course meal with wine for €15, in Germany that won’t even buy you a main meal.
The German penchant for precision and their low tolerance for the arbitrary is also completely different to the Spanish and Portuguese love of the lackadaisical. I must admit I veer towards the genial looseness of Spain and Portugal.
For such a surging developed country, they have not embraced wifi like some other European countries. Other than in a university town in a popular coffee shop, I could not find a cafe or restaurant with wifi. The hotels also were largely deficient of decent internet access. It drove me nuts, particularly when I had to work.
Our trip came to an end at Mainz, which is an ancient town about 30kms from Frankfurt airport. We overnighted there before dropping the car back at the airport the next morning, then boarding the Etihad flight back home.
My only personal expenditure was a pair of Meindl full leather boots. I’ve been lusting after these boots ever since I saw them worn by a bloke who walked over the Route Napoleon in early April, when it was closed by snow.
In Germany they are relatively inexpensive – especially when you claim back the 19% tax. I bought them for the Portuguese Camino next April.
Mainz again turned out to be a Camino town – and important link through from Frankfurt into France. So our German trip started at a Camino town, and ended at a Camino town.
I landed back in Australia several hours ago to a comment posted on the blog, under the Coincidences? post, which some of you might have missed –
It was signed by someone calling himself, or herself, Satan – with an email address of 666@hotmail.com. The IP address led me to a server which is anonymous.
Here is what “Satan” had to say –
Hello Bill,
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on this splendid job you’re doing on behalf of me. To see you rape the spirit of the Camino is a great joy for me. You’re even succeeding in turning true pilgrims into ordinary tourist. Ha, just loving to see you destroying those innocent souls.
But the public ‘execution’ of Sister Simon Clare has been your greatest feat to date. Your destruction of this vulnerable catholic nun warrants an upgrade to your future seat in hell.
Keep up the good work Bill!
Yours sincerely,
Satan
You might have seen my reply – and Steve’s reply – calling this Satan a gutless coward for making criticisms without revealing his or her true identity.
I am quite happy to have a dignified debate with this person on the issues he or she has raised, but I won’t do so with someone who hides cravenly behind anonymity.
Mind, you, I don’t know that a dignified debate with this person would be possible. He or she doesn’t seem to be particularly bright.
So ‘Satan” – if you want to step outside and have a real fight, then have the balls to identity yourself.
Come out from your creepy hidey-hole under your slimy rock into the full sunlight of transparency and accountability, and let’s go toe to toe baby…
Bill
Drove about 6hrs the other day and ended up in a small town near Munich called Dinkelsbuhl.
Dinkelsbuhl is on the famous Romantic Road, and is a picture postcard historic town, restored like a Disneyland theme park.
Even at this time of the yesr, it’s notoriously difficult to find a parking spot in these towns, especially when you arrive late in the afternoon as I did.
My GPS – yes, GPS – led me straight to the hotel in the main street, and surprisingly in a town jammed packed without a free parking spot anywhere, there was an empty parking space virtually right outside the entrance to the hotel – about fifty meters down, outside some shops.
“They kept it free for you,” my wife said.
I didmt know what she meant.
She pointed out her side of the car window, to the shop I’d parked out front of.
It was a clothing store – and on the glass panelling of the front door to the shop was a sign. It said PILGRIM. It must be a clothing or footwear brand.
But they kept the space free for me…
(photo to come)
PGS - The Way 
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