Dirt in my hair and stew in my stomach

Today was a pretty great day – I got up, hearing Una and Lola, the Forn's Giant Schnauzer, fighting (to the death!) over some silly food that Lola had found in his bag. Got up, said goodbye to Forn and Lola, and they left with Paddy and Una, who were going to walk to San Nicolas with them. I had what was left of the coffee and read some articles from an issue of The New Yorker that I found. I really need to subscribe to this magazine when I get back home (for good.) I've forgotten how good it was.

So after Paddy got home from his walk, we took our grocery list and drove into Sahagun to pick up supplies. Stopped first at Max Descuento (the “bulk” discount store outside of town) and got wine and other canned things. Then we drove into the city and stopped at Paca's store where I got a new notebook. Paddy's expecting a new ink pad for his cello (green I think) but it hasn't arrived yet. Then we walked over to Lupa and got the rest of the groceries on our list. Paddy bought some whole squids which give me the eebie jeebies, but remind me of Hannah.

After that we got some bread and then headed back home. Today we got a good number of things done around the house. Had some tuna for lunch and started cooking the stew I had planned to make for dinner. After that was started I went to the back yard and hacked away at the beam above the back gate so that it doesn't stick anymore, and is much easier to open. James and Sebastien took the day off to account for their hangovers, and Sebastien was nice enough to water down a small area in the garden plot and move most of the large rocks off it. He and Paddy went back into Sahagun to see about renting a hand tiller, but didn't end up getting it, as Julia (a girl about my age in town who speaks English rather well) had told him that one of the neighbors may have one we can borrow.

While they were out I moved some hay from the barn out to the compost pile and watered it down in hopes of prepping a good heap of compost for later this year. Then I went and made some rows in the soil for the sweet corn, and planted eleven plots of seed to test out the heavy clay. The germination period is 7-10 days, so we're going to see if they take. If not, we'll worry about putting down lyme and fertilizer.

I also drilled a slot into the donativo box that Paddy bought in town the other day. Hopefully if pilgrims are going to continue to stop and eat/sleep here they'll be inclined to donate some Euros.

We had dinner fairly early by Spanish standards, at around 6:30, so that we could go over to Barrunta and watch the futbol (soccer) match between Sevilla and a Ukranian team. It was a really great game – Sevilla won in the end, but less than 30 seconds to the end of the game their goalie, of all people, made a miraculous goal which put the game into overtime for another half hour since they were tied, and then Sevilla made another goal before time was called. It was a surprise seeing as the first half of the game was completely uneventful with no goals scored.

Tomorrow morning Paddy and I are going to walk with Una into Sahagun. I'm going to email Jeremy and see about getting Paddy's older VodaFone to work with the new SIM I bought from him. That might be worth all this hassle saving me the price of a new phone (€60, or about $90-100). We shall see. Anyhow, I'm going to go hop in the shower, so I don't have to take one in the morning, and then heading to bed. I finished listening to The Two Towers and am working on Return of the King. I've got a lot of audio books to listen to... thankfully on occasion.