Going Commando!

Buenos Tardes mi amigos. We have made it to Los Arcos although as one wag suggested we were los winos – all because we were up at 5.50 to get out early for the Pilgrim chores of going via this monastery. Hey ho, off we went – evicted as we had been from the big brother house – so early – I thought I’ll just wear the cycling shorts today – its not as if anyone can see anything its pitch black out there.

The thing is the old ladies on this trip think that Fat Al and Si are the eye candy – I mean nonsense or what.

This all started when the Frenchman left a few days back. “M. Cheval” as Si thought he was called. I said “no he was either being accused of having hung a horse or something else by our tittering ladies”.

I blame the mixed showers. Anyway he’s the first of our mates to be evicted. He said he only had a week and would continue next year from where he left off.

His was a great help to us in Ronscevalles or more specifically at Burguette when he came in holding a sleeping bag asking if anyone had lost it – while we tucked into our hot chocolate.

Si and I had lost it – over a torch that morning – but hadn’t realised his bag had fallen by the wayside. Our Gallic hero however arrived with his horse and said there you go – or words like – “ye daft nimrod ye”

So he’s gone, finished, nada, and there we were heading up to our monastery in the dark. When we arrived we were obliged to take a glass of the wine, toast ‘happiness’, and wander on towards Santiago.

It was a good wine too!

The road was long and by the time the sun came up my cycling shorts had nothing to hide. We wandered up mont blanc – albeit it was more villamayor montjardin. They’d had a fiesta the night before and the debris was scattered about. Fireworks, bottles you name it, but our lass had opened up the bar specifically for us so at 9am we had our second drink of the day. Back to the hot chocolate I’m afraid.

We nearly took a wrong turning – well we did – but after 50m reckoned it was right – sure enough we were soon back amongst the grapes and looking at the trail as it rolled onwards to middle earth. We passed the plaque – more a stone carving with runes and elvish speak – where Tolkein first envisaged Bilbo walking out of the shire on his travels.

As you can see from Si picture of me I could pass for a hobbit quite successfully – although Si is more an elf these days.

So enough of that we arrived and that’s my story.

I washed myself in soap again and had some shampoo left over from the hotel so smell better than most of the skanky gets in our Albergue!

Tomorrow we take on the world – well it is Spain – it will be Sunday – and we’ll have to dodge the church traffic.

But no poliitics or religion. We got caught out in peunte la reina. A frenchman asked what we thought of Tony Blair as the french like his sense of humour and the fact he speaks french – I erupted

“Tony Blair, il est un Camembert, il penser, il est un grand fromage”

Apologies to Priorite a Gauche!