KM 00.0  What a cool marker.  Congrats Greg and Helene. Wish we were there.

Spain, or at least the province of Zamora has the most unusual, and really quite beautiful churches. The first one I saw, I took many pictures of, both because of the multilayer stork nest arrangements, but then found that many towns had the same design of churches.

I must admit that I do not know much about these churches, just that they caught my eye as something I had never seen before.

…..and I had never seen a stork before, in fact was not totally sure they were not a “myth”. Lo and behold they do exist and the town Montamarta, where we spent a night is the home to the greatest number of them. Their nests would make the Bald eagles nest look like a “tiny house”.  

They make a clicking noise, which echoes throughout the square (or   plaza mayor, which is what the central squares are usually called in Zamora province)…. as most of the times, the square is built around the churches and the storks build nests in the church steeples… etc etc.

I have to say that despite spending SEVERAL days in Stork country, we never once, NOT ONCE, saw a stork carrying a baby in a basinet.  Perhaps it is a seasonal phenomena.

I believe that this is the Montemarte one, and if it is, not only where they housed on the church steeple, but also on every single power pole leading into and out of town. LOTSA storks….. I wonder if there is a pecking order for WHO gets the church steeple….:)

 

Now that i have put all these photos up, I realize that they are not all the same, but they are all similar in that I have not seen anything like them before….. They are really a facade  with a varying number of bells hanging from them. This last one below, has no storks, I am thinking because this one is in Galicia, and they prefer Zamora.

In some ways looking at this photo… it represents the beginning of the end for me. This was the last stop before the 450 metre climb to Albergeria, where I left with symptoms of a cold the next day.  Likely the steep climb weakened immune system and someone GAVE me a cold (do I sound bitter?).  Then a few days in Ourense trying to shake the bug with the hot baths and the NOT walking part.  Then a hike to CEA where the bug firmly established its control ….over the situation…. then a trip to Santiago to rest up … then the shoulder fracture….

So this is the last spot that everything felt great.

Well I had follow up X-rays  in Chase (our closest X-ray dept) and my doctor reviewed the X-rays with the orthopaedic surgeon who  feels that at the current time the displaced fragment is in a good position for full function of the shoulder, so for now we will just watch it, X-rays again  on Tuesday.

X-rays often appear like a ghost in a snow storm to non radiologists… well me anyways… but this one DOES show the fracture lines when magnified.  Essentially the two round blobs are both broken off.

I guess I had expected breaking bones would hurt more, but I really have not had a lot of pain, and my daily rations of wine have been adequate.  It did hurt more when I coughed, so thankfully the cough has gone away.

We are happy to be home, we were amazed at what a months absence has done to our gardens, the weeds have had a merry time in my absence. Four days of weeding and the place looks back to normal.

You can garden with one hand, it just takes longer and you only have to clean the dirt out of the fingernails of one hand.