“Its like a giant diaper”

So said our American friends who are on the Camino.

“Si – ok we’ll do 30km tomorrow. These idiots think they’re in feckin Italy.”

“Graci” – I’ve got a neice called Grace and then there was Grace Jones, or Casey Jones or why don’t you speak louder!

So now the waitress is letting them know what’s on offer – “oh, so that’s like a white fish” – “whatever” our Spanish Catherine Tait replies – with a disdain only the French manage at Eurodisney.

Of course its now 9.30pm and we’re about to leave and the size 6 waitress is still trying to explain that if our American friends can’t speak Spanish they could go back to the front door and memorise the english version.

There’s an American version too.

ITS VERY CLEAR AND TAKES PRIDE OF PLACE. CHOOSE STARTER 2 AND MAIN COURSE 6 – THEY ARE THE BIGGEST!

I DONT BELIEVE YOU’RE A VEGETARIAN!

How they’re still this size after 130 miles – ‘oh no’ a thought – ‘how big were they at the start – my how the pyrenees have shrunk under their combined weight. It just shows you granite aint that harder after all!’

Meantime I’ve now worked out why they bus so many people in to tread the grapes. Azofra is seriously poor and the people undernourished. They could tread grapes for days and never burst one.

I saw a plaque on the way in that said Lowry got his idea for Matchstick men and women not from a pack of Scottish Bluebells but from the day he arrived in Azofra on his camino in 1926.

Some geezer soon realised on his camino in the 1980s that he could turn it into a Spanish folk song – name that boy!

Although to be fair Status Quo had already been their camino in 1968 and done a song about Madchester’s favourite painter.

His plaque sits next to George Orwell’s or Eric Blair to his friends, which reads Blair first got the idea for down and out in Paris when he was walking the camino. He also stated quite openly that if the fascist bastards ever tried to storm the basque country he’d be over like a shot.

Eric Blair Spanish civil war Guernica (apologies for spelling) and the fine artist Picasso. Cubism eh? Where do we start. Probably at the end.

Back to our American friends. I’m sure Grassy Ass is what they still think happened to the guy who shot Kennedy. It wasn’t Lee Harvey Oswald from the book depository – an identikit of which – we saw today as we walked through Najera – by the way Najera – that’s a shit hole – even our fellow camino walkers were using those exact words to describe it.

Let me see, how best to take Tower Hamlets, Niddrie and the Gorbals and thread them together to make a town. I felt safer walking through Toxteth in 1982, through the bull rings in Hulme in 1987 at T-in-the-park with my daughter Caitlin as I introuced her to the – yes Caitlin – that is what we call a pipe. That is what we call drugs that will make the wee geezer’s eyes go around like a frisbee in a fruit machine.

“Yes, my money’s on crack cocaine”, she said

“Yes it is funny how he can’t light it, does he not know we have wind in Scotland, hence our wonderful fuel efficiency” I replied.

“Yes he’s now sparked out and missing the Editors, how sad is that.” She said

“Yes you’re 13, its good you see these things. You’ll make your own mind up anyway”

Aha – I’ve lost it again! Where was I – yes Los Americanes. Today we passed dah dah dah Los Angeles.

So los Americanes asked for a foil parcel – a doggy bag but I’m not going to describe how they tried to request said item. Let’s just content ourselves with walking less or more than them tomorrow!

Aha – Simon has woke from his – “have you finished eating yet Al” slumber.

“Well – its not my fault you’ve now told me to chew my food properly and my hamster cheeks will shrink”

To Seed or not to Seed

This isn’t to do with being a Jaffa – this is much more fundamental.

In sport some teams are seeded in sporting competitions and in others there is no seeding.

We think we should do a poll – to seed or not to seed – that is the question – whether it is nobler – to suffer the slings an arrows of outrageous visits to Arbroath or by opposing head to Hampden!

If you have a vote use the blog to register it!

But back to Blair, Eric that is. He came over got invovled a bit them went back. He was sickly lad – never really did make it to 1984 which most pension actuaries of the time would tell you he might. He spent some time on Jura I believe and in Switzerland. Talking of which we haven’t seen our swiss friend for a few days now.

But Blair and fascism. Hmmn, it may take some time to complete. Like his grandson he did bear arms. He wasn’t a draft dodger. Another vote for the blog

Which Blair should’ve gone to war – Miss Jean Brodies’ Blair or Football Tony Blair as Armando Iannucci once accurately potrayed the wee boy Blair. Apologies to the Dundonian if I’ve spelt his name incorrectly but “oor ian” just wis’nae gonnae work!

Well – sorry he does work – but let’s not offend all Dundonians!
I

Living with a Legend

Day 8 finished as day 9 began. Si snoring like a badly blocked drain and me looking like I´d been tango´d. During the night someone must´ve coated me in fake tan and so even my sleeping bag´s been tango´d.

 Its easy to understand how drunk I might´ve been when I bought the t-shirt, scroll down to photo of lardý in full – cares not a jot – colouring – but there was method in the madness.

 I knew (that´s knew as in ken, not new as in my t-shirt Si) we´d be getting up early and as such would need something to direct the oncoming cars away from me and towards the lardy in the black.

It worked a treat, at 7.01am, wing mirror of van clipped Si´s cheek, at 7.03am left hand of Al´s clipped his ear, at 7.06am front wing of Beemer dented on Si´s legs. All of which had the desired effect and slowed him down a bit.

 We did the 25 km in 5 hours and i could still breath when we took the bags off – that´s off all as in Hands off Hibs as opposed to your hands of Hibs which you put on the begging site yesterday – ok Vinny enough of that – its not as if Deadbeat was a master of the spelling – dont blame Keith – sorry the voices are at it again.

I´ve been on the road with Si so talking to myself has been my only recourse to a bit of banter. We did well today though, toasted ourselvbes for having made it through through to Najera and then another 6km to our present abode. What a place too. 5 euro and a double room – well sort of, more like a caravan twin room but it beats the dorms any day.

We were adding up the money the other day – not the www.justgiesyerdosh.com sorry www.justgiving.com/deadbeat – how good is that by the way. Your all to be congratulated as we approach 1500 quid we are bombing. I think more than anything we´ve got no trouble doing this because so many people from different places have put their hand in their pocket and CHAS are really doing such a great job. I wont dribble on about it but kids deserve it, especially the ones that go to Rachel or Robin house, and we´re both delighted that you´ve made that effort.

My begging letters have been in full flow so I´m indebted to all the people who have responded and we´re both looking forward to harrassing our workmates on payday to get us through the 1500.

But back to being tango´d. It had such a profound effect on me I left the dorm this morning thinking I´d left something again – torch - no – water – no – boots – no -shit – sleeping bag. There it was lying on the bed. I cant believe that the modest amount of drink that we had on our day off could have that effect.

I´ve been reviewing the ´towns you must go back to´and yesterday – whatever it was called – Navarette – cigarette – have a bet – is one to re-visit. Not the derby game though. How could Newcastle lose to Derby. How can Kenny Miller score in the Premiership. So many questions so little money. Lucky for me when I phoned Iain he wasn´t in so I was unable to lose unqunatifiable sums but for those who like a flutter here´s a tip.

Its based on Sam Alardeechy´s observation that 16 of his squad had been on international duty and they looked jaded.

Derby and other crap teams dont have any internationalists – or if they do – like Kenny Miller – they pull out feigning injury to ensure they are fresh for their debut. After the international games in October – back the crap teams that have no internationalists in them.

I was in touch with home again this morning – I´ve spoken to Jackie more this last week than in the past month – its quite amazing how absence can make the call last longer. We were meandering through the vineyards of La Rioja and when you take a couple of grapes off the vine – oh man are they good. Juicy or what. Here´s a tip when buying grapes – if they´re shiny – dinnae. They should look a bit dusty – that´s what they look like here – and that´s that!

But back to living with the legend that is Simon. There are few people I know that can demolish cars with a shimmy of the hips. Picture the scene car travelling at 50 towards us, Simon walking 50m per minute. Simon not a bruise, Car a write off, that reminds me that class is permanent!

Maps followers of which there are few – tomorrow we´re going to go past our next stop of Santo Domingo and on to Grannon as we think they might have a brand new Albergue like this one here. If so its got to be worth the visit. If not we might head on to Redecilla. We´re getting a bit cocky again that there´s a bit of fitness building up and that we can start extending the walk – but we´re just setting ourselves up for the fall – so we´ll try to keep pacing ourselves.

Unlike the cash. Yes, the beer is cheap Si and so are the fags, but when you have 5 times the normal amount it fair adds up. No wonder we´re starting to think about walking all day – its just to stop spending the dosh!

Day 9 – Navarette to Azofra

Footnote from yesterday.

When I left you I was writing yesterdays piece.

After we left the Internet place we carried on drinking. Alan was so delighted with his new t-shirt that he made sure all in town new – a slightly smaller version of the ´Tango man´.

Met this guy Jim, another Irish person. We had dinner with him that evening and polished off another couple of bottle of wine  before crashing around 10.

When you are staying in the refuges / albergues they shut at 10pm. You aint back by then you get locked out.

Left Navarette at 7am. A little hungover but not bad. Still dark. Alan still wearing his bright orange t-shirt which is in this instance no such bad thing. Being so bright the cars can see him a mile off, even in the dark!

There are two routes to Najera the main town we go through today, a straight one and one that goes via Ventosa (3km detour). We must make sure we dont go anywhere near Ventosa!!.

Unfortunaltely the map we have is kinda out of date for this stage as a bloody great big motorway has been built in the last year obliterating the original trail.

Okay we´ll just follow the motorway we thought. This was fine until some kind hearted local explained that we were on the wrong road and should go left. Alas we did. This was the road to Ventosa. The one we had been trying to avoid!!. I was not amused. We also had the company of a wee middle aged Japanese lady who was also not to pleased.

Fortunately after a 500m trek up this road we found a path that led us back to the motorway and lo and behold the straight path we wanted.

Around 11am we got to Najera. Sad to say the first place we have come to where you wouldn´t want to stay. Al reckoned it was a bit like going through Tower Hamlets (London). Nuff said.

After a pit stop for food, we left. By 12 we reached Azofra.

I should mention that for the whole of todays route we were surrounded by Vineyards. Field after field of grapes. They taste fantastic! You´d never eat another bunch of grapes out of Morrisons again.

And what a refuge at Azofra. Newly built and all rooms have twin beds. No sharing with 90 other people. We did our usual routine – wash, then did our other usual routine – drink, eat.

5pm – After siesta. Getting used to sleeping in the afternoon. Bit like Friday afternoon at work!

As there are only 2 bars in town and there´s only 10m between them we went on a mini pub crawl. Well actually we didn´t get passed the first one. As this was the first hight of Champions League fitba´we stayed in the one with the bigger telly. tonight we´d get Real v Werder Bremen. As most of the locals were staunch Barcelona fans we were all German for the night. Nice to see these things dont change from country to country.

The only issue we had to deal with was that the games kick off here at 8.45pm and the bloody refuge closes at 10pm. We´d only get the first half. Hmmm……

There´s got to be a way……

At half time i went back to the refuge and pleaded in my best Spanish to let us watch the rest of the game in the pub. The lovely senora recognised my plight. He´s fat and red, let him watch it. She showed me how to open the gate from the outside so we could let ourselves back in. Result!

Well yes and no. Real won 2-1, the locals were miserable and crying in their Rioja. We however got back in the refuge.

Tomorrow is Barcelona. Hopefully we can repeat.