Pilgrimage starts here...

I've just been sitting down doing my sums, as part of preparation for the Camino - and some pretty long-term planning.

From what I can work out, the two-month trip will cost me around R25,000. Provided our exchange rate doesn't plummet and ticket prices don't go up too dramatically. That, for me, is a lot of cash. But I do have nearly a year in which to get sorted out and find it.

I'm realistic enough to know that no amount of lotto-card-buying is going to provide a windfall to cover this. No rich relatives will shuffle off this mortal coil and leave me their fortunes. It's solely up to me - and hence the pilgrimage starting here and now. If I am to make this one work, I have to start immediately and create the mindset and habits needed to accomplish it.

It's going to take both discipline and creative fund-generating to make it work. But perhaps that's also part of the reason I've been impressed to get going on this journey. To not only do the Camino, but to spend a very long time preparing to do it - to re-examine many aspects of my life that may need aligning with what I need to do, to sort out issues that I face, and to continue to cling to a goal until it becomes reality.

In a way, those can be applied not only to my Camino plans, but to everything I dream of doing, everywhere I want to be, whatever I want to become. It's a paring down to focus on the steps I need to take - for the Camino and for a variety of other things that occupy my imagination and my heart.

So yes - the Camino pilgrimage starts here. But so do a few other journeys. All intertwined, all somehow related, and all affected by each other and by the way I approach them.

As challenging as it seems, as almost-impossible at times, strangely I'm looking forward to what happens next. These are merely first steps on many roads that I may yet travel.