Thursday, July 03, 2014

Thursday 3rd July 2014..Camino day 30!!!

Sound like a broken record but had another good sleep and slept in till 8am I had the day planned and knew I could have a leisurely time so when i got up had a good long hot shower and then walked a couple of hundred yards to the bakery that i saw last night and bought a huge hot crossaint and came home and I had some butter and strawberry jam and a wonderful cup of tea!!!!! As I mentioned yesterday I booked a hotel room for tonight in a small town called Vilalba and I knew it was an easy flat walk of around 20 km( I can hear some of you now saying what a slacker only walking 20 km!!!!!)so i took my time and was on the road by 9.30am.. It was a beautiful day sunny and warm but with a nice breeze the walk was mainly through lovely forests and small hamlets enjoy the photos!!! This beauty was watching over a field of cows. I am now seeing a few more Pilgrims and the ones I tal to have all started out at different points along the Camino and this is the first comercial project i have seen!!! I do like my stick but the handle is a bit rough so i saw this farmer and asked him if he could help and within a minute he had double taped the handle!!!!
Does this not sum up what we all need in life??? so 23 km later I see this sign and then my first Santiago sign!!! can you believe it almost down to double digits!!! I found the hotel easily on the main street it is a small hotel run by a nice young man who spoke English and he welcomed me and showed me the room which is small but perfect with the tub and pilgrim foot bath, close to a supermarket and a bar next door...all this for 20 Euros!!! After sorting out my stuff I found out that the young Canadian superstar of tennis was playing in the semi final at Wimbledon so I went downstairs to the bar and asked the young bar keep if she could find tennis and if i could stay and watch and of course the answer was yes and i sat and watched on the big big screen...below is the report how Canadian tennis history was made...she impressed me with her skill, her calmness, attitude, composure and of course she is gorgeous!!! I then went to a local bakery run by an older lady who was lovely and bought another wonderful crossaint for tomorrow's breakfast and a treat for me with my tea tonight!!! Then went next door to the supermarket and got fixings for a salad and enjoyed eating that whilst sitting on the bed with the sun pouring in through the window...this pilgrim has a good life!!! So after posting this it will be time for my bath and then bed not sure what I shall I do tomorrow or how far I walk we will see!!! Today my thoughts went to jobs I have done in my life and I want to share with you if you are not interested just fast forward!!! My dream as a kid was to be a Professional soccer player and although I had some skills, tenacity, a mean streak and determination I just was not good enough but I still maintain, egotistically, that if back in my day they had the football academies they have now things may have turned out differently!!!! So I decided that I would be a Police Officer so I applied in Sheffield and whilst waiting to see if I got accepted I commenced my first two jobs. The first one was a Saturday job at Woolworths......I was put in the glass ware department and this did not go so well with a fair amount of breakage so next Saturday when I came to work I had to see the supervisor and I was not surprised to have her tell me I had been re assigned......now all of you old enough to remember Woolworths know they had a huge selection of loose biscuits with a big counter well at one end of those counters was a very small section where the broken biscuits were placed and offered at a discount so at the tender age of 16 years I became the manager, product supervisor, stock boy and salesman for the broken biscuit section at Woolworths...I had it made!!!! I then took the only job of my whole life that I did not enjoy I was a desk clerk in charge of filing for a huge steel company..fortunately both of these positions only lasted a week as i was hired on then by the City of Sheffield as a Police Cadet...the training was three years and I enjoyed it all. I was then sent away to a former RAF airfield for 4 intensive months of training to become a Police Officer it was here that i had 3 haircuts in one day!!!! After training i was assigned to a city center foot patrol and did that for almost two years when I realized there was much more to life and I saw an advertisement for Police officers in Bermuda...did not know where it was but I sent off the application and to a great shock to all my family in April 1970 I kissed my Mum and shook hands with my Dad got a train and the next day I was in Bermuda. This was a dream job with time off for all the sports I participated in and I worked first as a foot patrol officer, then a cycle cop(that is a story all in itself some other time) then I was a Detective for a number of years and then the best post possible I was the private bodyguard for the American Consul general for nine months and my last posting was in charge of a section at the airport in charge of security. All great times and I left after 10 years got married and moved to Canada where my Brother in law taught me how to become the manager of a large supermarket and I loved this job too. When I divorced my wife i also lost my job with her BIL understandable so I bought my own small conveinience store in the same small town in Alberta. I lived in the back of the store and opened 7 days a week 365 days a year from 8am till 10pm and I also loved this but then again realized more to life so I sold it all took a year off and traveled and then had quite a substantial amount of money saved and made the big mistake of my life I went back to the same small town where i had my store bought a building and opened up a small hamburger joint....it was a resounding disaster and within 6 months I had lost all my investment and money. This was the lowest time of my life I was in a really unhealthy relationship, broke and no future when the Gods smiled on me in the name of Richard Bird(I know Marylin reads the blog and she will not mind this) Richard was visiting the small town and we knew each other from years ago and actually came from the same town in England he was back visiting the town where i lived to see friends..we talked and he offered me a job as a waiter working in his restaurant in Nanaimo on Vancouver island......long story short I drove there to see the restaurant turned around came back and packed up all my belongings and drove to the Island...I shall never forget this drive it was in 1992 and I had everything I owned in the back of a Honda and 2000 dollars in my pocket.......Marylin and Richard took me in gave me a job and i am proud to say I worked for them for 14 years never late, never a sick day and I loved every shift I did. Very sad to say that Richard was taken from us a number of years ago but i shall never forget him!!! Little sidelines were I bought a mobile hot dog stand and had that for 2 years and worked it on weekends.......I then worked but it was not work being a companion to Roy for 6 years in the mornings before i did my shift in the afternoon at the restaurant and when Roy passed I started spending time with Ken which also was a joy......when my soccer playing days came to an end because of a nagging thigh injury I took up Reffing soccer games got really good at it and did over a 1000 games in BC and the States. Then the big day with money invested, saved and a huge sum when my Dad passed away i was able to retire in December 2006 bought Ramona and here I am. I have been so lucky i loved every job every day except for the filing one!!! Boy once i start you cannot shut me up!!!! Thanks Chris for sending this to me he you enjoy!!!! >> Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning. A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a  heteronym.  >>  >> You think English is easy??  >> I  think a retired English teacher was bored...THIS IS  GREAT!     >>  >> Read  all the way to the end.................  >> This took a lot of  work to put together!   >>  >> 1)  The bandage was  wound  around the    wound.  >>  >> 2) The farm was used to    produce produce .  >>  >> 3)  The dump was so full that it had to  refuse  more    refuse .  >>  >>  >>  >>  >> 4)  We must  polish  the  Polish    furniture.  >>  >> 5) He could  lead  if  he would get the  lead  out.  >>  >> 6) The soldier  decided to  desert  his dessert in the    desert.  >>  >> 7) Since there is no time like  the  present , he thought it was time to    present      the  present .  >>  >> 8)  A  bass  was painted on the head of the  bass    drum.  >>  >> 9) When shot at, the  dove dove    into the bushes.  >>  >> 10) I did not  object    to the  object.  >>  >> 11)  The insurance was  invalid  for the    invalid.  >>  >> 12) There was a  row    among the oarsmen about how to    row .  >>  >> 13) They were too  close    to the door to  close  it.  >>  >> 14) The  buck  does  funny things when the  does    are present.  >>  >> 15)  A seamstress and a  sewer  fell down into a    sewer  line.  >>  >> 16) To help with planting,  the farmer taught his  sow  to    sow.  >>  >> 17) The  wind  was too  strong to  wind  the sail.  >>  >> 18) Upon seeing  the  tear  in the painting I shed a    tear.  >>  >> 19) I had to  subject    the  subject  to a series of  tests.  >>  >> 20) How can I  intimate  this to my  most  intimate  friend?  >>  >> Let's  face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in  eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in  pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or  French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while  sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are animal organs. We take English for  granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that  quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a  guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.  >>  >> And  why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers  don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is  teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2  geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it  seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you  have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of  them, what do you call it?  >>  >> If teachers taught, why  didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables,  what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the  English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the  verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play  and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?  Have noses that run and feet that smell?  >>  >>  >>  >>  >> How can a slim  chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a  wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique  lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it  burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.  Speaking of fire, why are flammable and inflammable synonyms, while dependent and independent are antonyms?     >>  >> English was  invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the  creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race  at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible,  but when the lights are out, they are invisible.  >>  >> P.S. -  Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'?  >>  >> You lovers  of the English language might enjoy this.  >>  >> There is a  two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other  two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'  >> It's  easy to understand  UP ,    meaning  toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken  in the morning, why do we wake UP ?  >>      At  a meeting, why does a topic come  UP ?  >> Why  do we speak  UP    and  why are the officers  UP    for  election and why is it  UP    to  the secretary to write UP    a  report?  >> We call  UP    our  friends.  >> And we use it to brighten  UP    a  room, polish  UP    the  silver; we warm UP    the  leftovers and clean UP    the  kitchen.  >>      We  lock  UP    the  house and some guys fix  UP    the  old car.  >>      At  other times the little word has real special  meaning.  >> People stir  UP    trouble,  line  UP    for  tickets, work  UP  an  appetite, and think  UP    excuses.  >> To  be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed  UP    is  special .  >> A  drain must be opened  UP    because  it is stopped  UP.  >>      We  open  UP    a  store in the morning but we close it  UP  at  night.  >> We seem to be pretty mixed  UP    about    UP !  >> To  be knowledgeable about the proper uses of  UP ,    look  the word  UP  in  the dictionary.  >> In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes    UP    almost  1/4th of the page and can add  UP    to  about thirty definitions.  >> If you are  UP    to  it, you might try building  UP    a  list of the many ways  UP    is  used.  >> It will take  UP    a  lot of your time, but if you don't give  UP ,  you  may wind  UP    with  a hundred or more.  >>      When  it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding  UP .  >>  >>  >>  >>  >>      When  the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP .  >>  >>  >>  >>  >> When  it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things  UP .  >> When  it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry  UP .  >> One  could go on and on, but I'll wrap it  UP ,  >> for  now my time is  UP ,  >> so.......it  is time to shut up!!! LONDON -- Eugenie Bouchard defeated Romania's Simona Halep 7-6 (5), 6-2 in semifinal play at Wimbledon on Thursday to become the first Canadian women's singles player to advance to a Grand Slam final. Bouchard, from Westmount, Que., converted her sixth match point to complete the victory in one hour 34 minutes. The 13th-seeded Canadian will next face sixth-seeded Petra Kvitova on Saturday. Kvitova beat fellow Czech left-hander Lucie Safarova 7-6 (6), 6-1 in the early semifinal. "It's my first Grand Slam final so I'm just going to go for it," Bouchard told ESPN. "I'll have probably my toughest match yet so I'm looking forward to the challenge." Another Canadian is in the final four of the men's draw. Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ont., will take on Switzerland's Roger Federer in semifinal play Friday. In a semifinal that was delayed twice in the first set -- first by a left ankle injury to the third-seeded Halep and then by an ill woman on Centre Court during the tiebreaker -- Halep double-faulted on break point in the second set and then was broken again by Bouchard to give the Canadian a 4-1 lead. It was third time lucky for Bouchard -- she had lost both previous semifinals in Grand Slam tournaments this year. She has not dropped a set in six matches so far at Wimbledon. Kvitova is the only player born in the 1990s to have won a major title, taking the crown at the All England Club in 2011. She improved her record to 25-5 on the Wimbledon grass and she's made at least the quarter-finals five years in a row. "I know how (it feels) when you hold the trophy so I really want to win my second title here and I will do everything I can," Kvitova said. Bouchard, from Westmount, Que., is the only woman to have advanced to all three Grand Slam semifinals this year. She won the 2012 junior title at Wimbledon. So another day my legs feel great and overall after living out of a back pack for over 4 weeks and sleeping in different beds every night I have to say i feel 100%. Things I learned today. To enjoy every moment!!! Yashi Kochi!! >

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