A long but ultimately satisfying day. One reason for the satisfaction is there was no rain, just bright windy sunshine. Bliss after the last couple of days. We met a South African lady last night who'd been on a preparatory course for the camino (in SA) in which she'd been told to take trainers not waterproof boots 'to avoid blisters'. Well, yes... But not much fun in rain or snow! She was rather horrified by all the cold and wet of the last few days. Hopefully she will have had a better day today.
We covered about 35k today which is also quite satisfying, and without any major foot breakdown. While there are always some small niggles (new and old) it's lovely to have mostly manageable feet now.
The landscape is a little East Anglian. With better weather today I could actually look out at the meseta and not just my feet or the rain streaming off my hat. It consists of long rolling cornfields and flat expanses. Then a long afternoon of canal and river paths, somewhat endless but beautiful and also Cam-like. Then finally a last hour stomping the long straight path next to the road. We had avoided the first 10k of said path due to the river detour. But it does provide some diversion - written on sequential path markers:
'Martin'
'I am'
'Thinking'
'About'
-- sticker sadly missing---
'Luiblor 24/03'
(Our Lithuanian friend? What was she thinking?!)
At present lying in a monastery dorm, empty and with absolutely no-one around. I hope they don't mind - I'm way too comfy to move right now.
Later: nuns, not monks, of St Augustine, and they gave us each a paper star and a blessing before checking us in. What nice ladies.
We had to each say why we are doing the camino. This seems to be kind of a personal question - people ask you it surprisingly rarely. The usual answers vary widely in frankness from the proximate ('because I had some holiday to roll over') to super-personal (bereavements, cancers etc). I usually just say that I don't know but I always wanted to. Not deep but as truthful as I can get.
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