Morning fog with news breaking in the afternoon

It´s a big, big chill around here since I got back. I think I brought some of the Galician weather with me. Rainy and chilly and foggy. Not a lot of fun.

Except for my deep and abiding gratitude for just being here, being HOME.

Paddy and Kim had a birthday cake waiting for me, and a gift of a little orange tree. I suspect Kim´s hand was at work, as Paddy has yet to even remember my birthday unless heavily prodded... but I will take what I can get! We do normal things, like helping friends move house, washing stinky dogs, cleaning out the birdcage, grazing the chickens on the patches of grass that are managing to grow in the wasteland out back. (cowherds, goatherds, shepherds I´ve heard of. But what do you call a herder of poultry?)

Ordinary things, made piquantly delicious by the misery that went before. My life is so good!

One big piece of news in Moratinos: posted on the community bulletin board outside the church is the application for a building license. Looks like Daniel the Guy from Palencia is going ahead with his plan to build a pilgrim hostel on the edge of town! The paper doesn´t say much: just that it´s a 16-bed, two-star operation, set to pop up on Pilar and Stasi´s section of the "era," the threshing floor out where the camino comes into town. It´s a great place to put a hostel.

I kinda wish they´d redeveloped one of the falling-down places already in town, but I understand intimately how that´s more costly than putting up something new, and full of all kinds of headaches. I took Daniel and Co. all over town last fall, looking at the Alamo and several other empty and suitable sites and houses... and nobody would part with anything! It´s better to let it fall down than to sell it out of the family, I guess...

I have several hopes/wishes for the new place.

> I hope it´s done low to the ground, and in a rustic style that harmonizes with the scruffy adobe look of the town.

> I hope they have a little bar there, so pilgs can stop for a drink and we and the neighbors can have a cozy meeting place that´s not in someone´s house.

> I hope they stay with their stated plan to serve vegetarian snacks! I am not a vegetarian, but I appreciate good veg. food... and it´s a real rarity round here.

Speaking of vegetables, the peas and broad beans are finally sprouted out in the yard, and today I planted three nice lavender bushes in the patio. If the ground out back ever warms up, I will put in the big ol´ tomatoes I started from seeds ages ago. They are READY to MOVE! I am really looking forward to the gardening business this year, even though I secretly doubt my prospects for success.

Our hot water heater won´t work.
Paddy wants to spend a couple of days in Barcelona before the May Onslaught descends, while Kim is still here to keep a watchful eye on the critters. I really am sick of traveling, but Paddy needs to get outta here, and we won´t have another chance like this for a long time, probably. (and there´s an amazing museum full of Romanesque frescos there...) But we can´t leave until the water supply is straightened out. It´s always something!

And now back to Serious Business.
I have fallen behind on the Hospitalero Training online thing. And the Camino San Salvador trail notes. And there are two unread New Yorker magazines calling softly to me from the sofa...