I don’t often take a disliking to unmarried mothers &’ve never met, much less those who lived over 2000 years ago, but today… well let’s just say that the Virgin Mary and I are no longer on speaking terms (if we ever were). Today is a holiday for Mary which means all the shops and a lot of the bars and cafes are closed. Which would have been ok (ish) if someone had thought to tell the non Spanish pilgrims that this was the case. As it was I had a 25km stage planned, fairly hilly, but I thought I’d be able to break it up with a couple of stops for coffee. I had some biscuits, an orange and plenty of water ‘just in case!’
I left Grande de Salime at around 6.30am. It was dark and foggy but a warm 22c. It feels odd to be warm in the fog. I knew the day was going to get hot (the local forecast predicts it will be 41c this afternoon) so I wanted to get some kilometres done before it got too warm. As the Sun came up, and the temperature rose, the views revealed themselves. A good excuse to stop and look (and catch
I’m starting to recognise fellow pilgrims as we leapfrog each other along the trail. We are all going at our own pace, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Most pilgrims on the Primitivo seem to be Spanish or Italian, so conversation is a bit plodding. Most of the time I am happy to walk on my own.
I never feel lonely, there’s plenty going on in my brain to keep me busy and the audiobooks and podcasts I downloaded have yet to be listened to. Today I saw
A news article about teachers in the UK being allowed to be called ‘Mx’ rather than ‘Sir’ or ‘Miss’ caught my attention. I’ve always hated being called ‘Miss,’ it is a lazy shorthand when I have a perfectly good name that could be use. And I’m a ‘Mrs’ not a ‘Miss!’ And don’t get me started on the difference between ‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’ in terms of implied respect. I have (or should I say had?) a particular aversion to colleagues referring to each other as ‘Miss’ when talking to students or other teachers.
So that little train of thought kept me busy for a while (as well as trying to work out how to pronounce ‘Mx’) and gave me something other than the lack of coffee to think about. And the hills. Lots of hills!
At some point we passed from Asturia into Galicia. A fact I realised because the way markers change. 
In Galicia the way markers have a strangely precise, but often not accurate distance to Santiago on them. Occasionally you’ll walk a couple of kilometres but the next marker you see will put you further away from Santiago.
The last kilometre and a half was a bit of a challenge. Hugely steep hill on very hot weather and direct sunlight. I was walking from one patch of shade to the next where I would pause, cool down a little, and allow my heart rate to reduce a little. I got there in the end. I’m in a private room tonight in an Albergue. My room has air conditioning! Feels amazing to be cool.
A Fonsagrada seems to be closed for the holiday. Luckily I have an orange and some biscuits left as replenishing my snacks would be impossible. I’ll go out later to see which bars are serving food. It feels a long time since the hamburger I had last night, a packet of crisps and a beer from a vending machine aren’t really cutting it for lunch. I eventually got a coffee at 2pm!
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