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!! >
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!!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Thursday 5 th January 2023…it was a great run!!!
This was my first ever blog post back in November of 2006!!! With just a couple of days off I have written a blog every day since and I hav...
-
I come from a family of six generation Salvation Army born and raised and I am thankful for the upbringing I had and I think along with my ...
-
I had no big plans for today Janet works in the charity shop on a Monday and Malc plays golf...so I enjoyed a slow and good breakfast with t...
-
The sunshine seemingly is following me around and after breakfast this morning June decided we should do a hike to a close by landmark........
No comments:
Post a Comment