Fits and Starts

The vegetable garden's been wiped-out twice now -- once by Hens from Hell, once by a very late frost. This does not make me happy. Tomorrow I shall try yet again with the green beans and red peppers, tomatoes and chard and spinach. I enjoy planting seeds and seedlings and seeing them emerge and grow, but this is getting tiresome.

Other things are happening, and not happening, and not quite happening. My friend Marta has spent the last three months moving from her splendid house in in downtown Madrid (yes, a HOUSE) into a sunny bright apartment in uptown Madrid. She had 40 years' worth of antique furniture to downsize. I took some chairs in December, some blankets and pillows for the albergues, a couple of vases. I don't need any of these things. Valuable, fragile, antique things don't live long here in the Animal Kingdom. But three weeks ago I drove home from her house with walnut headboards, a 200-year-old framed mirror, paintings and prints and elegant lamps. Marta could not throw them away, or give them to the predatory antique dealers for 25 euros. So she gave them to me.

(Making space for these acquisitions has begun a huge domino-effect rooting-out of things we haven't used, don't use, and never will use. April's been cathartic, furniture and closet-wise. Lots of hard work, but very little visible outcome. Sorta like gardening...)

Marta hired a guy with a truck to bring us even more beautiful things, stuff that would not fit in my van. A dresser to match the headboards, a really nice desk that, yes, I really can use. The furniture man was due last Thursday or Friday. We waited around, but he did not come. He rescheduled.

We got on with our lives. I took lamps and woolen blankets with me up to O Cebreiro, where my other friend Laurie has a sewing machine. She can repair the raveled edges of those lovely thick blankets, and pass them on to Refugio Gaucelmo, the original English pilgrim refuge. (Laurie helped to found that place, 25 years ago.) She has a big stone house where Marta's big old elegant lamps have room to glow. She has a herb garden that's sheltered from late frost, so I dug up all the mint, fennel, oregano, and melissa I could ever want and took it back with me.      

Paddy stayed home to oversee the furniture delivery. It didn't come again.

On the way back home yesterday morning I stopped in Trabadelo (I love that word: Trabadelo!) and visited Casa Susi, a new albergue started last year by an extrovert Australian lady named Susi. It's very simple and beautiful. Susi has much to be proud of.

I got to Astorga by noon, and there I met up with one of the more courageous people in this world. Her name is Shirley, and she is Australian, too. Last year she was hiking the Camino de Santiago with her husband Ron. During an overnight stop in Leon, Ron died in his sleep. After a couple of harrowing days, Shirley walked on. She finished their camino! And last Fall, she got in touch with me about putting up a little memorial to her husband at the little park outside Astorga. (I wrote about this last year -- the city planted trees for fallen pilgrims, anticipating events like this.)

So Ron's memorial is the first one of what I hope will become a "memorial garden." On Saturday I did a little service, blessing the memorial stone. Shirley was there, walking the camino again, this time with her sister-in-law. Inez, an Australian hospitalera, came along as well. The mayor came, and reps from the Astorga pilgrim amigos group, and people from the hotel in Leon where Ron died. Malin, my friend from Sweden, sang a sad song. We spread Ron's ashes at the base of the tree.

Then we all went over to Castrillo de Polvozares and had a feast.
After that, Inez came with me back to Peaceable.

San Anton, looking up from the road below

And this morning, a dark and stormy day, we loaded a mirror and some other blankets and table covers into the car and hit the road again. We moved eastward this time, to Castrojeriz. It's the last day of April. The Albergue Monasterio de San Anton opens on 1 May, and we had to get the place into shape to start welcoming pilgrims.

Four of us ladies worked for three hours, sweeping and scrubbing, putting things onto shelves, pulling weeds and making up lists.We stamped credentials for several very wet pilgrims, and retired to Castrojeriz for another feast.

Tomorrow, Inez heads back to Australia. David is coming to do some painting, he'll watch the house and critters for a couple of days while Paddy and I go to Madrid to have Paddy's eyes examined by a specialist down there. On Thursday Paddy will get the train home, and I will catch an airplane to Santiago de Compostela! (it costs only 28 Euros! Takes only an hour and a half!) The FICS board is meeting there, we're plotting new schemes and deciding what's next... Being a do-gooder requires a large carbon footprint sometimes.

I'll take the train home from there, a long, leisurely haul through spectacular scenery.
I'll stay home for a couple of weeks. We have some cool pilgrims coming our way.
And maybe someday the furniture will arrive.
And Springtime.
And vegetables.