Feliz Cumpleaños!

Mom's umpteenth birthday is on Friday, so I'm sure you all join me in wishing her a good one.  Hopefully she and Glenys don't spend the day tanked in some seedy Spanish watering hole.  For that matter, with all of the bar-hopping that's been going on over there, I'm wondering if they shouldn't have hiked through northern Mexico instead - drank some tequila and saved a fortune.

Anyway, I received this email on Tuesday past:

Just finished quite a good supper - bread ; wine, soup but I don´t know the kind, pork; fries with banana yogart for dessert. BTW they put a bottle of wine on each table. together that makes a pilgrims meal and cost us 8 euros each!!

Today we walked from Carrion to Ledigos beginning at 9:00am and arriving at 7:20 for a total of 24kms. It was a beautiful sunny day so we made a number of stops to enjoy the sights. It was mostly flat land as we are still on the Meseta. I now have my hands sunburnt but it´s a Newfoundland suntan (ie half way up my hands because of the straps on on walking sticks!!). The albergue we are in has heat in the rooms so that is a bonus.

Yesterday we walked 27kms, Sunday we walked 20 kms, Saturday we walked 20kms and Friday we walked 20kms - that gives us 111kms in five days. We have two days left in this week and would have liked to do 189kms so we´ll probably need to take 8 days to make our goal (that´s before we get to have a treat and stay somewhere other than an albegue).

Spain is pretty energy-conscious and frequently has its lights on timers so that they are automatically turned off after a period of time. This is a wonderful concept except when you are in the toilet (Spanish language) and all of a sudden you find yourself in the pitch black!! (especially an issue when you are claustrophic!!)

Looking forward to our walk again tomorrow. Going to wear our pants with the zip off legs in the event we have another bright sunny day.

My feet are doing a little better so we´ll keep trotting along. I especially like one of the Pilgrims´Prayers that Bishop Cy used at the Eucharist Blessing in Synod Office Chapel with the staff before I left. It goes like this:

Bless to us, O God, the earth beneath our feet. 

Bless to us, O God, the path whereon we go.

Bless to us, O God, the people whom we meet.

We have checked the blog and see the number of people who are following and appreciate all the support and prayers from home.

Take care;

Sandra and Glenys

Then I received this one today:

Hi Jason

Just another little update that might be helpful for the blog (you´re doing a wonderful job with it and I love your humour!). Last night we stayed in Ledigos and celebrated St. Patrick´s Day with our two Irish Friends - Patricia & Tony. Would you believe there was a bar called Murphy´s? As well myself & Glenys there were also three from the US, another Canadian and one from Holland. After we all gathered we went to the restaurant and sang Irish Songs and ate - in your imagination you can visualize me singing along!!

We are in Bercianos del Real Camino (11,3kms so far today - just had lunch) Would like to go another 18.1 but that may be too much, we´ll see. It´s a nice day, we´ve had light rain but it is beautiful right now.

Got two minutes left now to go check the blog.

Take care, say hello to Ben & Allison (& baby)

Mom

It's nice to see that they appreciate my humour, especially since most of it is at their expense.  It's funny what a new surrounding will do for you.  After all these years of living in a part of North America with such a high concentration of Irish descendants, Mom had to go to Spain to celebrate her first Paddy's Day in an Irish bar.  As to the singing... I'm not sure if Boyd Morgan is reading this or not, but as Mom's past choir master, I'm sure that he'd be more qualified to comment on her choral abilities.  At least the Newfoundland reputation for natural musical talent is being reinforced and upheld in Northern Spain.

Ta Ta until next time,
Jason