Wearing my Beanie to bed now!

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HI All,
Yes you read it right, I now wear my beanie to bed to keep warm. Jack wants a photo! No deal. Socks and sandals are one thing but me in a beanie tucked up in my sleeping bag is quite another. All I can say is roll on Paris and French lingerie.
The night I blogged last was the coldest so far but there was a little reward the next day. The walk was only 14.5 km into Fromista and I decided to stay because the sky looked ominous and there had been some thunder. Miraculously the sky cleared later in the afternoon and I was able to enjoy a couple of wines at the bar next to the albergue in the SUN. All the cold and tension fell away as I realised how lucky I was at that moment. I was warm, dry, the wine was very good, I dinñ´t have anything I had to do, I didn´t have to worry about how I looked, what I was wearing or how bad my hair looked. I could just be me! I was ¨ïn the moment¨ and life was good.
Your comments and support are so good. Thank you so much. Today it is wet again and so hard to keep going but you have all inspired me. Janet I used to read of you watching the sunrises on the Meseta. They sounded glorious- for us this year there are are no sunrises or sunsets, just lots of mist which has it´s own beauty and when the sun does peep through it brings everything to life, so that I will never take it for granted, nor how light and sun paint such a different picture from grey clouds.
You are right Janet, those trees are plane trees, not liquid ambers. They look so different pruned, but with their branches joined they look like they are all holding hands and dancing in the streets. Hopefully by the end of the walk I will see them all with their dresses on.
I am on the famed Meseta now. It is an area of flat plateaus with cereal crops as far as the eye can see. Little villages with houses of clay brick and daub and straw break up the distances and much of the walking is on an old Roman road known as the via trajana. This ancient track is quite rough. I can´t imagine what it must have been like riding on a cart or chariot. I think walking is preferable.
The meseta has consisted so far for me of the following walking days... Burgos to Hontanos 29.6km. The last 5km into the village was that terrible mud but coming over a rise and seeing the village nestled ito a fold in the meseta was like finding a precious gem in one of the everpresent mud puddles. The church tower is always the first to be seen and then the village genlty reveals itself. There was much oohing and aahing as we all scrubbed our boots free of the mud. Always hopeful it will be the last time. The snorer from hell was in the dorm that night - right below me. I knew we were all in trouble when he gave us a preview during his post walk, get warm nap in the afternoon. Betina from Germany was in the next bunk and had confidently told me at dinner that night that she didn´t need ear plugs as she slept so well. The next morning she said even Big Vesuvius (he was Italian) defeated her. Whoever invented earplus should receive a sainthood, a knighthood and an Order of Aust. They have save many a pilgrim for insomniac induced muder.
The next day was Hontanos to Itera de la Vega (the coldest place on the camino) 21.4km. It was on this day I noticed barley stalks ( or could be oats) are blue green and their ripeniing heads are a yellow green. In the wind with their bearded heads they looked like a gold green sea of horses with manes flying. Now I know the meseta can cause all manner of hallucinations but if you were there you would see what I mean. Check it out next time you are out in the country. It´s worth stopping to just watch the fields.(no I hadn´t had any Vino Tinto yet that day!) Itera was a strange little town. Not at all pretty and it had the weirdest bar. I´d given up trying to get warm in my sleeping bag so headed out to find a bar. There were no other pilgrims around. After writing up my diary I had a good look around the place. No windows open because of the cold so the air was thick with blue smoke from the locals enjoying a drink and copious cigarettes. The bar was adorned with Bongs, Dope leaf motifs, Gothic skeleton ornaments and lamps, a Doors flag and poster of Che Guevera. It was all very other worldly particularly on the Camino where one mainly sees statues of saints and madonnas on every corner.
I was very happy to walk on the next day to Fromista and that lovely afternoon of sunshine. Fromista is well known for its 11th C Church - the type I love - Romanesque in design, very simple with no gold embellisments. Decorative features are in the form of exquisitely carved capitals and corbels in the lovely golden stone. Motifs of animals, foliage, monsters, pagan emblems sit side by side with carvings of biblical stories. The simplicity of it´s design and it´s enormous proportions are quite breathtaking. The craftsmen of old were amazing.
Fromista to Carrion de las Condes 21.3km. This is where I am now. I´m having a respite from cold showers and one toilet per twenty people in the albergues and staying in a 16th C monastery converted to a very lovely hotel just out of town. I was so pleased with myself as I rang ahead from a public phone in Fromista and booked the room in Spanish. I was so excited and chuffed with myself after I did it I nearly threw away my phrasebook! It´s called San Zoilo. The doorway into the chuch here has very simple motifs carved into its arch one of which is the ¨la pata de la oca¨translated as the goosefoot. It is a three prionged symbol and supposedly the mark of the Companions - a mysterious brotherhood of stonemasons which is purported to have built the Egyptian pyramids as well as the incredible Gothic Cathedrals lining the Camino in France and Spain. This really intrigues me. I´d read about this motif on this very doorway and had to look really hard to find it. There is a beautiful cloister in which to wander and the food here is lovely - a change from the Pilgrim´s Menu in all the bars.
I ran into the two Dutch ladies I keep seeing - Rieke and Rhea. They are staying here too. Both well into their 60s, they are amazing. They only like to walk 20km a day so if they have to they do what they did yesterday - ask the barman in the village where they decide they have had enough, to call them a taxi to get them to where they are heading. Camino in style!
I´ve stayed an extra day to catch up on blogging, phoning home and just to have a quiet day. It was raining when I woke so that sealed the deal as well. I don´t mind it starting to rain whist I´m walking, but walking out into it is not the way to start the day.
By the end of tomorrow I will have made the halfway mark 396km. It really seems such a short time since I started back in St jean in France. I can´t believe I´m halfway.
So until next time keep sending sunshine - I hear you are having heaps of it at home. Sam you´re probably having it in Scotland too.
Cheers,
Annie

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