Before I start I have a confession to make. When I write my blog,  the lovely Gerry comes along after and edits it for me.   He corrects my typos and the stupid phone auto corrects because it’s really difficult for me to do on my phone; basically he generally tidies things for me.   But he’s away. He’s actually in Leon.   So tonight you may need to overlook an untidy blog. Gerry calls it gibberish which I felt a little harsh.

Last night we ate in town and bumped into so many old friends that we thought we’d never see again. We’re back on the Brierly stages and the town is full of pilgrims.   Oddly enough though,  even though the town is busy our 70 bed albergue is almost empty. There are three big bays of bunk beds but we had one all to ourselves. and as the only girls, the bathroom was all ours too.

In the bay next to ours were a couple of French guys and one had a horrible hacking cough… Our plan was to give him a wide berth but his coughing kept me awake part of the night.

We’re demob happy and we were talking after lights out… Actually we didn’t turn our lights out and we were sushed by the French Bay so we settled down… After finishing our conversation in a loudish whisper, no doubt further annoying our French cousins.

I never slept well though.   Too many thoughts about where and how and when and a French man with a hacking cough.   There was also a bright light outside my window which I wasn’t used to and a generator that kept going on and off.   So it was the wee small hours before I dozed off and before I knew it, it was morning and we no doubt annoyed the French Bay a little more by stuffing our sleeping bags back into their sacks while they snored on.

So we left…  We headed out on our last proper day.   We had our last proper breakfast and joined the trail of pilgrims also on their last proper day.   I say proper because tomorrow will be different…  For one we’re going to leave really early.   We’re also not planning on stopping every couple of hours for coffee.   We’re not planning on doing any of the usual things that we do as we’ve meandered our way through Spain.   Tomorrow we’ll have one goal… walk to Santiago.

There really are lots of people walking. A gabble of different languages, a bun fight at the coffee shop, huge queues for the loo.   But it’s OK. It feels like the camino is in party mood. I wonder if it feels like this everyday here?   I even managed to not scream when the cows came trotting down the lane. I even stayed put and took photos!

But the camino still isn’t giving us an easy ride in. Today we followed a VERY busy road into Santiago and sometimes this meant having to cross that road.   Three times we crossed and I can assure you my heart was in my mouth every time.  The markers were obscure, we missed one which left us walking on the hard shoulder of the dual carriageway. We followed this road for an hour or so and I was very very relieved to get back in the forest.

And so we’re here.   Our last albergue, in O Pedrouzo,  on our last proper day.   Our last albergue shower on our last proper day.   And now our last pilgrims meal on our last proper day.

We’re 19 kilometres from Santiago and we finish tomorrow.