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There perhaps are no words to describe the feeling of walking round another long cobbled street and it opening up to reveal the twin towers of this beautiful Santiago cathedral. The square was thronged with people,all hugging and tearful and taking pictures. The clouds unusually were coming over but it didn’t matter.

It was noisy and buzzing with what looked like hundreds of pilgrims, all asking each other in so many different languages if someone would take their picture.. but behind all that, the cathedral stood quietly and regally. The front doors were gated, no one was going in so in my confusion I turned to an elderly American lady who wore a flower in her hair.

”Oh, you have to enter from the side door but they won’t let you in till a half hour before the service, you’re best going to the Pilgrim office to get your Compostela before the line gets too big. It can take hours”

I took one look at Janine and her lovely daughter Emma and we ran ….yes!!! Ran in a hobbly way across the plaza and right, down to the Pilgrim office. This was a whole different kettle of fish. I had to get it. I had my 2 passports with over 70 stamps from every village and chapel to prove I had walked every step of the way!! Not getting my certificate was NOT an option.

And the heavens opened. Santiago had had no rain for 2 months and it sheeted down. We were hustled into a line in an open garden corridor that led to the passport office. The funny thing was…it was just like a passport office. You were electronically called out one at a time from the line which had started to grow out into the fountain courtyard and then the street.

It seemed to take forever and I had been on my legs since before 5.30am. It was after 10.30 am now and mass was at 12. Would we make it? 11.00 came and went but by 11.15 it was my turn.

Boy do they check your stamps….which is good…for whatever reason some pilgrims will catch buses and miss sections out…but mine were all there.?

The chap was actually English who saw to me and he must have read my beaming face.

“Do you want an extra Compostela that shows your distance for 3 euros?” He asked.

Was he joking? YES YES and of course YES Please. There was another line for the payment as I gratefully scooped up some little trinkets on the way..rosary beads and shell magnets etc.

We fell out of the office into the rain. Our smiles were short lived because the line for the cathedral side entrance was 4 deep and wound around the whole square …and it was pouring down. There was nothing for it, we queued. Me with my cheap white plastic poncho thing that wasn’t waterproof. If I had been 40 years younger I could have passed for Miss wet ‘T’ shirt!! It was getting doubtful that we would get in. It was ten to twelve…there must have been fifty in front of us…all that walking to be turned away at the door……no room!!   I had heard that a few times on the way.

But as if by magic, the security guard ushered us in providing we took off our back packs. I did and left it underneath some pillar just inside the church.

Then there it was…no disappointment but a gilded alter with every seat taken and cordoned off with red ropes. Security men ushering people in for standing room only. Slowly a hush came over everybody….a lone nun started singing….`I was there!!