Thursday 20th May. Molinaseca to Cacabelos.
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| Hoarding in the middle of field: Luxury on offer - at a price! |
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| Stork on a stalk |
Sometimes it's hard to remember anything about a particular day except some very odd little daft things, like the fact that on this day, the staff at the very excellent albergue at Molinaseca seemed to forget to replace the loo paper, and so the already-wise tore off a bit of the disposable table-cloth at breakfast. There were angry comments in the guest book, as though everything good about the place had been forgotten, and very good it was, even if the most exciting bit of conversation at the evening meal there WAS about 'what is the German for 'garlic'?' And there was toast and jam for breakfast, breakfast being a very optional meal, and we did once have to walk for about 5 miles before even our first cup of coffee. What we went through!
Another ordinary thing on this day was buying a new pair of walking socks for 22 euro, which seems a lot, I know. But they were 'sock heaven' for my feet, and I would always set off on a 450 mile walk in future with a completely new set of socks, if I could afford it; they do lose some sponginess with many washes.
A bunch of little school-kiddies was in Ponferrada as we went through, and they all chorussed 'Buen camino!', having been well-trained. These provided me with material for today's little paper-camino pic.
In 2011, another journeying 20th May; a trek by ferry and several trains from Dublin to London. I painted paper-camino pics throughout the ferry crossing, and then enjoyed a bunch of high-spirited young men singing along to guitars on the 2 hour trip to Chester. I moved to be near them, and did a bit of a hip-gran thing of applauding them while sprawling about crocheting a lace mat, wearing what I think of as my cowboy hat, and thinking that there was a good camino-like atmosphere, and wanting always to be on a camino. Sometimes it happens that bits of life do in fact seem just as exciting as spending a day walking 17 miles along a straight path through fields!
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| It just looks like a wall around the church... |
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| But look inside... |
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| and there is room for all under the shelters, no-one is turned away from this albergue |
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| Like beach huts with smoking pilgrim (not me!) |
Cacabelos, 20th May 2010! This was the famous albergue which is a series of beach-hut-like rooms-for-two built into the wall surrounding the church. It was a great place in which to suppress screams of pain in the night due to feeling that something was gnawing away my flesh from inside my toes. Also the place we had a good meal with Tim the Englishman now living in Canada, who wrote up the camino as he went along in his blog
www.healingonthedanforth.com
which is still there. Small world, he had been at school with Lincs MP Edward Leigh. Tim was one of the many 'lapsed Catholics' doing the camino that you will encounter if you see the film. Many such seem to search for whatever-it-is in other religions, and some are not aware of the rich resources in the religion they are lapsing from, which I find very, very sad; let's hope that in these days of too-much-information that some will return home and find something good in the attic.
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