Thursday Sept 26th

We “vamoosed” from our excellent abode this morning at 8:30. Our host shooed us out saying vamoose vamoose.....meant in the kindest way. Her husband drove us back to where we left off yesterday.
The walk was really nice and shady on mostly country roads. The sky was broken sun and overcast so quite the best temperature for walking. On  Our first stop for coffee ther3 were many pilgrims we had seen over the last week. We sat in a small annex or private room and every inch of wall had someone’s name , date and sometimes a message on it, so we added “pilgrims four”.
As we went past a small school a man was leaning over the wall and called out to ask us where we were from.....we said Vancouver and he wanted to tell us a story.....that morning a group of Americans had walked by and he invited them into the school to meet the kindergarten children. The Americans sang “head and shoulders, knees and toes” complete with actions then the children sang it for them  in Spanish. He told us awhile back they had a girl come in and speak to them, she was an rcmp from Whistler, she told them about the skiing and showed them her picture in her red serge uniform. Of course we told him that we knew Whistler very well and three of us had places there. Small world, I’ll have to find out where the officer is now....her name is Patty R.
As we walk our feet are often crunching chestnuts and pine nuts, so many underfoot! I’ve been bonked on the head a couple of times.
We ran into our kiwi friends about mid day and said goodbye as we won’t see them again.....they had been good fun. At 18.9 kms we reached Padron, a significant town famous as it as the Place where St. James (called Santiago) body was brought in an apostolic boat in the 1st century and moored.  In the church of Saint James of Padron the Roman alter stone called the Pedron is at the bottom of the main alter in the church.  It felt a bit surreal to be in the presence of something so, old and important to the CaminoSantiago. Leaving the church we stopped for our daily tradition of grande beers!
We had the bar man call us a taxi as our accommodation for the night was again off site some 5 kms away.  We arrived at a Casa rural and were shown to our nice rooms. Jan had a rest while myself, Sandy and Joanie  washed out some socks.  A glass of wine in the garden and dinner at 7. Dinner was humongous! Large bowl of lentil soup, a huge plate of ribs and a platter of salted potatoes! One glass of wine each, dessert was a type of apple flan topped with a coffee type of ice cream.......then came the homemade grappa! It was white lightening I’m sure, ghastly but it had to be drunk or they would be insulted.
We thought we would maybe play some cards to pass time before bed and peeked into the lounge to see if there would be room.....a lady saw us and waved us in. Wendy and her husband Darryl are from Northern Ireland, Belfast area. We really enjoyed their company and loved their accents! Many funny stories were told of different travels they and we had taken. We discussed Guinness drinking, Rugby, skiing and a multitude of laughs. They are off on a bus to Santiago tomorrow as poor Wendy is suffering with blisters.  So “with a click of the gate” we took a few photos with Darryl in the middle and said our goodnights. Darryl and Wendy may read the “blog” so I hope I’ve got that last bit right!
It was an entertaining night.