WHERE IS EDITH PIAF WHEN YOU NEED HER?

Oh, my lord, there is already karaoke of sorts on the chemin (soon to be referred to as Camino as I am soon to be in Spain). Spent last night in French Basque country at a rural gite (soon to be called albergue, or hostel) that is noted for their singing soirees with the pilgrims. And how do they get this dour group going? Well they ply them with lots of homemade Basque wine. Extremely effective tactic.

I stayed fairly sober and so did not do my much anticipated solo of I WILL SURVIVE but do wish I had gotten out the words of OVER THE RAINBOW, beings that Judy (as in Dorothy) is such the Saint of the Camino/Chemin. And since the rain quotient has been going up lately I am looking for a rainbow. Or mud boots. One day of pretty much constant rain though not torrential. Otherwise we have had aobut 6 or more days of cloudy humid weather. It has rained at night most of those nights so there is a lot of mud and some big puddles to navigate through. I expected that I would have this earlier in the trip. But oh well. It has pretty much blocked the tremendous views of the Pyrennes which is kinda sad.

Here I am at the Port Saint Jacques in St. Jean Pied de Port this morning (where I started last year). I am finished almost all of the French portion except for going over the pass in the Pyrennes into Spain. Weather lousy and may have to put off hiking until Sunday. But if it is halfway clear I go tomorrow. I already had some fantastic views of the mountains of the central Pyrennes which are still VERY snow covered. Soon the warm weather stuff can be safely discarded....I hope.

The shin seems to be much better. Swelling down significantly. I have been limiting myself to an escargot pace around 12 miles a day for 6 days now. But I feel like I can now do some more serious mileage. Next post in about 3 days from Pamplona!!!!