Making lemonade

DoughnutANZ said:

Of course, that was just the first day and I had two more to go with delights like this.
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and this fabulous coffee with hot chocolate and ice-cream
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So, all in all, I made some delicious lemonade.

Click to expand...

DoughnutANZ said:

Someone who was probably quite famous is reported to have said something along the lines of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade".

When I recently got quite a large and painful blister under the ball and arch of my foot while walking the Camino Madrid I decided to seek medical help and was told not to walk more than 8klms a day for three to four days.

Then, because of a series of other time bound obligations I decided to put my Camino Madrid on pause for a couple of weeks and then come back to it.

So, I was in Valladolid (where I had gone seeking help), I didn't have enough time to complete my Madrid before my other obligations kicked in but I did have three days to kill and I could walk but not too far each day.

I admit that I have come to love Valladolid. For a start it is the Rugby capital of Spain and so any good Kiwi should visit the city and the Rugby Bar.

The bar is festooned with Rugby memorabilia, mostly Spanish but also a whole swag from Aotearoa New Zealand and The All Blacks and a couple of other lesser known countries.

View attachment 149489 View attachment 149490
View attachment 149491

The city itself has a really nice vibe to it and is the Antipode of
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, our capital.
I think that both cities share a Small City, Big Personality feel to them.
So, after checking out the Rugby Bar to see if I knew anyone, what next?

I had originally planned to do a Panaderia crawl when I was first in Madrid but I lost half a day trying to sort out my phone (grrr) and I was excited to get walking and so the crawl never happened.

It turns out that Valladolid hosts both a regional tapas competition and the Spanish National championship for Tapas and it has a reputation for seriously good food.

So this was my opportunity to do a Panaderia crawl without feeling guilty that I was not out walking a Camino.

I had asked @SabsP for some recommendations (because she has impeccable taste for food) and I did try some of those places like Gastrobar Pasion
View attachment 149492 View attachment 149493
View attachment 149494

and someone else on the Forum mentioned the Market and places such as Cerezal

View attachment 149495

But these are more Tapas rather than Panaderia places and I wanted sweet baked goods and so I went hunting and found these little beauties.
View attachment 149496 View attachment 149497
with a hot chocolate to wash them down.
View attachment 149498

Click to expand...

DoughnutANZ said:

Someone who was probably quite famous is reported to have said something along the lines of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade".

When I recently got quite a large and painful blister under the ball and arch of my foot while walking the Camino Madrid I decided to seek medical help and was told not to walk more than 8klms a day for three to four days.

Then, because of a series of other time bound obligations I decided to put my Camino Madrid on pause for a couple of weeks and then come back to it.

So, I was in Valladolid (where I had gone seeking help), I didn't have enough time to complete my Madrid before my other obligations kicked in but I did have three days to kill and I could walk but not too far each day.

I admit that I have come to love Valladolid. For a start it is the Rugby capital of Spain and so any good Kiwi should visit the city and the Rugby Bar.

The bar is festooned with Rugby memorabilia, mostly Spanish but also a whole swag from Aotearoa New Zealand and The All Blacks and a couple of other lesser known countries.

View attachment 149489 View attachment 149490
View attachment 149491

The city itself has a really nice vibe to it and is the Antipode of
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, our capital.
I think that both cities share a Small City, Big Personality feel to them.
So, after checking out the Rugby Bar to see if I knew anyone, what next?

I had originally planned to do a Panaderia crawl when I was first in Madrid but I lost half a day trying to sort out my phone (grrr) and I was excited to get walking and so the crawl never happened.

It turns out that Valladolid hosts both a regional tapas competition and the Spanish National championship for Tapas and it has a reputation for seriously good food.

So this was my opportunity to do a Panaderia crawl without feeling guilty that I was not out walking a Camino.

I had asked @SabsP for some recommendations (because she has impeccable taste for food) and I did try some of those places like Gastrobar Pasion
View attachment 149492 View attachment 149493
View attachment 149494

and someone else on the Forum mentioned the Market and places such as Cerezal

View attachment 149495

But these are more Tapas rather than Panaderia places and I wanted sweet baked goods and so I went hunting and found these little beauties.
View attachment 149496 View attachment 149497
with a hot chocolate to wash them down.
View attachment 149498

Click to expand...

DoughnutANZ said:

Someone who was probably quite famous is reported to have said something along the lines of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade".

When I recently got quite a large and painful blister under the ball and arch of my foot while walking the Camino Madrid I decided to seek medical help and was told not to walk more than 8klms a day for three to four days.

Then, because of a series of other time bound obligations I decided to put my Camino Madrid on pause for a couple of weeks and then come back to it.

So, I was in Valladolid (where I had gone seeking help), I didn't have enough time to complete my Madrid before my other obligations kicked in but I did have three days to kill and I could walk but not too far each day.

I admit that I have come to love Valladolid. For a start it is the Rugby capital of Spain and so any good Kiwi should visit the city and the Rugby Bar.

The bar is festooned with Rugby memorabilia, mostly Spanish but also a whole swag from Aotearoa New Zealand and The All Blacks and a couple of other lesser known countries.

View attachment 149489 View attachment 149490
View attachment 149491

The city itself has a really nice vibe to it and is the Antipode of
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, our capital.
I think that both cities share a Small City, Big Personality feel to them.
So, after checking out the Rugby Bar to see if I knew anyone, what next?

I had originally planned to do a Panaderia crawl when I was first in Madrid but I lost half a day trying to sort out my phone (grrr) and I was excited to get walking and so the crawl never happened.

It turns out that Valladolid hosts both a regional tapas competition and the Spanish National championship for Tapas and it has a reputation for seriously good food.

So this was my opportunity to do a Panaderia crawl without feeling guilty that I was not out walking a Camino.

I had asked @SabsP for some recommendations (because she has impeccable taste for food) and I did try some of those places like Gastrobar Pasion
View attachment 149492 View attachment 149493
View attachment 149494

and someone else on the Forum mentioned the Market and places such as Cerezal

View attachment 149495

But these are more Tapas rather than Panaderia places and I wanted sweet baked goods and so I went hunting and found these little beauties.
View attachment 149496 View attachment 149497
with a hot chocolate to wash them down.
View attachment 149498

Click to expand...

DoughnutANZ said:

So this was my opportunity to do a Panaderia crawl

Click to expand...

DoughnutANZ said:

I won't be walking much this week but I am reasonably sure that the monks won't overfeed me.

They probably won't notice that it is my 70th birthday on Wednesday.

I will get a few klms in today because I am exploring Burgos and I have a couple of tasks to complete before heading to Santo Domingo de Silos.

Click to expand...

DoughnutANZ said:

Someone who was probably quite famous is reported to have said something along the lines of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade".

When I recently got quite a large and painful blister under the ball and arch of my foot while walking the Camino Madrid I decided to seek medical help and was told not to walk more than 8klms a day for three to four days.

Then, because of a series of other time bound obligations I decided to put my Camino Madrid on pause for a couple of weeks and then come back to it.

So, I was in Valladolid (where I had gone seeking help), I didn't have enough time to complete my Madrid before my other obligations kicked in but I did have three days to kill and I could walk but not too far each day.

I admit that I have come to love Valladolid. For a start it is the Rugby capital of Spain and so any good Kiwi should visit the city and the Rugby Bar.

The bar is festooned with Rugby memorabilia, mostly Spanish but also a whole swag from Aotearoa New Zealand and The All Blacks and a couple of other lesser known countries.

View attachment 149489 View attachment 149490
View attachment 149491

The city itself has a really nice vibe to it and is the Antipode of
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, our capital.
I think that both cities share a Small City, Big Personality feel to them.
So, after checking out the Rugby Bar to see if I knew anyone, what next?

I had originally planned to do a Panaderia crawl when I was first in Madrid but I lost half a day trying to sort out my phone (grrr) and I was excited to get walking and so the crawl never happened.

It turns out that Valladolid hosts both a regional tapas competition and the Spanish National championship for Tapas and it has a reputation for seriously good food.

So this was my opportunity to do a Panaderia crawl without feeling guilty that I was not out walking a Camino.

I had asked @SabsP for some recommendations (because she has impeccable taste for food) and I did try some of those places like Gastrobar Pasion
View attachment 149492 View attachment 149493
View attachment 149494

and someone else on the Forum mentioned the Market and places such as Cerezal

View attachment 149495

But these are more Tapas rather than Panaderia places and I wanted sweet baked goods and so I went hunting and found these little beauties.
View attachment 149496 View attachment 149497
with a hot chocolate to wash them down.
View attachment 149498

Click to expand...

DoughnutANZ said:

They probably won't notice that it is my 70th birthday on Wednesday.

Click to expand...

DoughnutANZ said:

Thank you!

I think that we are the lucky generation in so many ways.

I think of my own Dad at 70, he was an old man and I don't feel anywhere that old.

Mind he and a lot of his generation went through some hard times.

Luckily for me, he was born in England, something that he always tried to hide. His father had volunteered to fight in WW1 from Fiji where he and his extended family had substantial land holdings, mostly 99 year leases.

Initially when my grandfather went to volunteer he was turned down because as a substantial land holder and farmer he was considered to be in an essential occupation and was exempt from call up.

His solution was to go back to his district, return his hundreds of hectare leases to the Fijians and then go back to sign up. This time he was accepted and he and his brothers went off to the "great adventure" in Europe.

One of his brothers never returned, while he was wounded, lost an arm and was sent back to London for medical attention.

While in London he met and married my grandmother, who was a nurse. It was probably a shotgun wedding because my Dad was born soon after.

When my Dad was six months old his parents sailed back to Fiji. During the voyage, of the five babies on board aged under three only one survived the voyage. My Dad put that down to his mother being a nurse.

They returned to my grandfather's freehold property, way out on the sticks, where they had dairy cows. There were no roads in those days in that area and so anything and everything travelled up and down the river.

There were no schools close enough to attend until my Dad was 12. When he was 14 his father died and so as the oldest he had to leave school and run the farm so that his family could survive. No social security in those days.

He hated farming but he had a huge sense of duty and so he ran that farm well so that his mother and brothers and sisters could live and get an education.

When his third brother, who loved farming was 18, willing and able to take over the farm he left and went to sea as an apprentice engineer. Engineering was his passion and he loved the freedom and adventure of being at sea. He served on the Nimanoa, a small coastal ship that serviced the Pacific Islands.

On December 7th, 1941 the Nimanoa was anchored in Tarawa harbour where they had been sent to service the Coast watch service that was monitoring Japanese naval movements and they also had instructions to evacuate civilians.

They received notice of the bombing of Pearl Harbour and it was thought that the Japanese would quickly move on Tarawa as it was a natural staging point and so they received instructions to scuttle their ship so that it would not fall into Japanese hands.

They followed instructions and so were marooned on Tarawa and were captured by the Japanese when they arrived days later.

Life on Tarawa was hard under the Japanese and atrocities were committed there. Something that he found hard to forgive in later years. He wouldn't even buy a Japanese car years later.

Through resourcefulness they and some other civilians plus three American airmen who had ditched in the area and managed to float to Tarawa, managed to escape in a repaired motorised open launch towing a non-motorised dinghy.

They island hopped at night to escape detection hundreds of nautical miles across the Pacific until they met a ship sent from Fiji to rescue them.

On return to Fiji he and his crew mates were exempted from further war service on the basis of what they had experienced. Not satisfied with this my Dad then hitched a ride to Sydney, Australia and tried to enlist in the Australian Navy. He was refused on account of his exemption.

He then went to the American Coast Guard who were operating in the area rescuing (mainly) USA airmen who ditched at sea and signed up to help.

He served throughout the rest of WW2 and here is a photo of him with his crewmates, celebrating on VJ day in Manila, Philippines.

View attachment 149610

What is the relevance of this you might ask?

Well my Dad did me the honour of dieing on my birthday, as his mother had done to him.

As a result, these days my birthdays are bitter sweet as I remember and honour my Dad, the life he lived and the absolute commitment he had to providing for a better life for me and my siblings.

A huge thankyou to both my parents for making it possible, through their hard work, for me to walk my Caminos in Spain.

Click to expand...

GeriVeee said:

Thank you for sharing your lemonade! I just returned from my 11 day trek from St Jean to Logrono, and I too took the lemons-to-lemonade approach after a rough start.

Getting lost, unrealized expectations, trip pivots, and redemption. I'll save the space here on telling you all about it, but if you are interested, I journaled every day in a blog.

https://www.arentwelucky.com/

This Pilgrimage is not for everyone and for some it's everything. I can only say it was worth every high and every low for me.

Buen Camino!

Click to expand...

DoughnutANZ said:

Thank you!

I think that we are the lucky generation in so many ways.

I think of my own Dad at 70, he was an old man and I don't feel anywhere that old.

Mind he and a lot of his generation went through some hard times.

Luckily for me, he was born in England, something that he always tried to hide. His father had volunteered to fight in WW1 from Fiji where he and his extended family had substantial land holdings, mostly 99 year leases.

Initially when my grandfather went to volunteer he was turned down because as a substantial land holder and farmer he was considered to be in an essential occupation and was exempt from call up.

His solution was to go back to his district, return his hundreds of hectare leases to the Fijians and then go back to sign up. This time he was accepted and he and his brothers went off to the "great adventure" in Europe.

One of his brothers never returned, while he was wounded, lost an arm and was sent back to London for medical attention.

While in London he met and married my grandmother, who was a nurse. It was probably a shotgun wedding because my Dad was born soon after.

When my Dad was six months old his parents sailed back to Fiji. During the voyage, of the five babies on board aged under three only one survived the voyage. My Dad put that down to his mother being a nurse.

They returned to my grandfather's freehold property, way out on the sticks, where they had dairy cows. There were no roads in those days in that area and so anything and everything travelled up and down the river.

There were no schools close enough to attend until my Dad was 12. When he was 14 his father died and so as the oldest he had to leave school and run the farm so that his family could survive. No social security in those days.

He hated farming but he had a huge sense of duty and so he ran that farm well so that his mother and brothers and sisters could live and get an education.

When his third brother, who loved farming was 18, willing and able to take over the farm he left and went to sea as an apprentice engineer. Engineering was his passion and he loved the freedom and adventure of being at sea. He served on the Nimanoa, a small coastal ship that serviced the Pacific Islands.

On December 7th, 1941 the Nimanoa was anchored in Tarawa harbour where they had been sent to service the Coast watch service that was monitoring Japanese naval movements and they also had instructions to evacuate civilians.

They received notice of the bombing of Pearl Harbour and it was thought that the Japanese would quickly move on Tarawa as it was a natural staging point and so they received instructions to scuttle their ship so that it would not fall into Japanese hands.

They followed instructions and so were marooned on Tarawa and were captured by the Japanese when they arrived days later.

Life on Tarawa was hard under the Japanese and atrocities were committed there. Something that he found hard to forgive in later years. He wouldn't even buy a Japanese car years later.

Through resourcefulness they and some other civilians plus three American airmen who had ditched in the area and managed to float to Tarawa, managed to escape in a repaired motorised open launch towing a non-motorised dinghy.

They island hopped at night to escape detection hundreds of nautical miles across the Pacific until they met a ship sent from Fiji to rescue them.

On return to Fiji he and his crew mates were exempted from further war service on the basis of what they had experienced. Not satisfied with this my Dad then hitched a ride to Sydney, Australia and tried to enlist in the Australian Navy. He was refused on account of his exemption.

He then went to the American Coast Guard who were operating in the area rescuing (mainly) USA airmen who ditched at sea and signed up to help.

He served throughout the rest of WW2 and here is a photo of him with his crewmates, celebrating on VJ day in Manila, Philippines.

View attachment 149610

What is the relevance of this you might ask?

Well my Dad did me the honour of dieing on my birthday, as his mother had done to him.

As a result, these days my birthdays are bitter sweet as I remember and honour my Dad, the life he lived and the absolute commitment he had to providing for a better life for me and my siblings.

A huge thankyou to both my parents for making it possible, through their hard work, for me to walk my Caminos in Spain.

Click to expand...