Friday evening.   Penny (30+ Irish) and her 13-year old son, Zac, arrive about five – much to the relief of us all, they having made the crossing without the benefit of as group to help them through the snow.   They also are poorly equipped:  Zac has no more than trainers and apparently wore plastic bags over them in the deepest snow.   Another Dutch couple got lost when the footprints before them were hidden in the snow and missed the turning.   All told everyone is exhilarated by having accomplished this stage of the journey, which is 16 miles from St Jean to Roncesvalles – mostly uphill and only the last stretch is precipitously downwards.

The pilgrim’s supper is soup and grilled trout and yoghourt, hardly substantive enough to reward us for our labours.   However I do find Carlo, an Italian who massages my calves and thighs and causes a miraculous recovery in my ability to walk!  Almost Biblical.

Attend evening mass in the abbey church is lead officiated by two old priests.   I am concentrating so hard on trying to make sense of their Spanish, that I am thrown when they start to read a welcoming message in English.

Jesús gives tutelage in drinking patxaran.   

Saturday 14^th April

The whole place is awake at 0600 and most are away by 0700.   We – Catlin and I – set off about a quarter of an hour later in the dark and the rain.

We stop at Burguete (of Hemingway fame) for breakfast and when I ask ‘Que hay bueno de comer?’ we get panada which seems to be a double ham and egg pie – with two different kinds of egg and of ham, delicious.

The rest of the morning in spent in more snow, and bitterly cold until we over take a Korean threesome.   One of the girls has twisted her knee and while Catlin bandages her leg I administer Ibuprofen.   There is little more we do except advise her to follow on to the next town and take a taxi, and for our good deed the snow stops.   They catch up with us in a bar in Gerendiain we were are re-hydrating ourselves, and help to organise the taxi.

If yesterday was the most on of the more exciting of my life, today is just hard, gruelling slog, 17 miles up and down on wet greasy surfaces, and Zubiri seems to get further away.    We eventually arrive very slowly about 16.30.

Am thinking of taking a taxi into Pamplona so that I will at least get to see something of this city.