Self-confessed Eeyore worries her way across Spain

The speed of the author/narrator could be tracked by NASA. And I do not mean that in a nice way.

I cannot, for the life of me and after nearly 200 Audible downloads, understand why Ms Howie insisted upon a narration speed seemingly designed to get her to the end of her grumpy, paranoid and guilt-ridded "Camino-ihsh" memoir as humanly possible/ She rachets along along at breakneck speed, articulating in minute detail travails, lost loves and worrisome real estate woes, relentless Euro cost accounting on every single solitary purchase, self-emotional-flagellation, mute in the face of customer rudeness and unwashed hotel sheets, Christian (Saints are mentioned so I surmise "Christian")-inspired guilt -- guilt, mind you! -- in her "pride" accomplishing a difficult mountain crossing, she dithers indecively across Spain.

I am planning my fourth Camino de Santiago for September 2022. I know the Camino. So, lady, don't mess about with me, okay?

Ms Howie apparently decided that trains (espeically first class trains) and buses are good choices to incorporate into what is generally accepted for the past 800 years as a walking Pilgrimage across Spain. To view with dismay a day of rain, promptly leading that discovery to cancel all thought of directing a single footstep towards Santiago de Compostela, was ... unsettling. I admit a strong April wind right in my face in Fromista put paid to that day, but that was one in a dozen days when I kept walking forward.

It rains, Ms Howie, in Spain.

In my late 50's, I managed 6k in consistent Galician downpours. And loved it! I loved it because I could do it, I did do it and I absolutely knew if I needed to, I could do it again! You walk in the rain ... and the sun ... and slide in the mud ... across Spain. You walk with your backpack, with friends or on your own, with a night of sound sleep or in a sleep shattered in nightime battle with snorers, with a cheese sandwich or a six course meal, with coffee and Rioja, with breathless vistas and heart-stopping mountain descents, you walk across Spain.

You don't take first class trains and linger absent-mindedly several days here and there in charming Spanish towns and hug a tree and call that a pilgrimage.

You are not a pilgrim. You are, Ms Howie, this: A TOURIST.

And finally, give over the whine you can't get your bloody tea! Try ordering a glass of Rioja at a sandwich shop in Manchester -- not gonna happen. Spain, remember?

To my consternation, I ordered "Part 2" of this miserable woman's scrabbling and indecisive journey.

Dread.

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