We’ve stopped for lunch; cold gaseous water and a ham, cheese and tomato bocadillo. It’s a glorious day, up at 5:45 and out the door by 6 a.m.

Long vistas across the meseta, a gently strenuous climb up onto a ridge and then, courtesy of the municipal authorities, a long ribbon of white concrete down to the plain where thankfully it petered out into the usual fine dust and small stones.

Our silhouettes clearly confirm our status as pilgrims 😉

Dinner last night was very pleasant. The Dutch chap joined the American couple and us for dinner. They’re pretty much polar opposites but the conversation kept away from contentious areas and all was fine. The American couple are very religious; the more we talked the more religious they seemed to become. Nice as they are, we’ll try to walk just that little bit further today and we’ll be unlikely to meet them again.

Mum’s mumps is possibly not actually mumps, but she’s absolutely fine in herself and we’re making excellent progress. However, rather than continue through the heat of the afternoon, we’ll probably call it a day in Fromista, only a further 5.8km along from here.

The picture below shows two very impressive stork nests, each with at least one very large stork in situ. .

A little later we passed at some distance what looked like a large conference of storks around a small pond. The aerial life on the Camino is pretty incredible; hundreds of swallows, swifts and martins dive and swoop around the houses and churches of every small village. Meanwhile the ground is a host of chattering sparrows