Las Pedroñeras

Today I feel fresher. Took me a while to get up from the warm sleeping bag and step out to -1°C in San Clemente. Long John's on this morning. It always looks odd wearing these tight legged affairs, but they are very thermal.

Headed out to find café and stumbled around for thirty minutes until a Churros cafe was gathered around by the he Sunday hunting fraternity. Now I'm warmed by chocolate and churros and heading out into the world beyond San Clemente where all the world is still and tinged with a haw frost. Dogs howling and barking and the distant sounds of gun shot: oh this is such a holy day? One where holes are driven into innocence.

Then more rain. An hour of very intense, but fine, drizzle and the continuous breeze, which I had forgotten the last few days, as a companion after Santiago de la Torre - a fine ruins of a castle. Biting off chunks the bread and Salchichón secco, which had been bouncing in my lunchbox since Monteforte del Cid, I faced the final hour feeling more of the inflammation on my right shin. At 25+ kms today it wasn't crazy on me by any means but my shin is beginning to bulge sinisterly.

Tonight I'm in a Convent of the Sacred Heart (the nuns moved out six years ago) for €15 and it has heating, a washing machine, shower and a kitchen. As well as possibly space for many pilgrims who come this in spring, early summer or early autumn. The opportunity to wash all my urine, snot, sweat and sundry other particles away is not to be sniffed at. It's amazing what this tortured body actually smells like several days without the option of a thorough delousing - bring on the DDT!