February frolics

[Bierzo Baggie]

Went for a run.
Did a section of the famous St James’ Way, the pilgrimage route that goes across the north of Spain from Roncesvalles to Santiago de Compostela. I run along a bit of it maybe a couple of times a month and usually I see a few modern-day pilgrims with their rucksacks and walking boots. Looking at the most noteworthy comments from last year’s notebook....

June 26th- Hot; ran past 14 pilgrims including 7 German tree-huggers who were gathered around a tree chanting.
October 13th-Ran past a Chinese pilgrim dressed in robes and wearing a conical hat. Said hello and he nodded. He looked pretty authentic....
Also on one of my pre-note taking runs I ran past Shirley MacLaine.

Today, and it was a cold but sunny February morning......no pilgrims so I amused myself by counting storks. “Por San Blas, las cigueñas verás” ...an old Spanish saying that means “by Saint Blas’ Day (Feb 2nd) you’ll see the storks (migrating from their winter stop-over in Africa). In fact a lot of them don’t bother and now spend the whole year here, scavenging for what they need in local rubbish dumps.
This morning I spotted 4 of the beady-eyed beasties, two of them in a nest on the top of a church and two more perched on a couple of other old buildings.

So, Thursday, cold but sunny. Circuit Ponferrada-Columbrianos-Fuentasnuevas (50% road 50% dirt-track) 66 minutes running time.
Storks 4 Pilgrims 0