Monday 20 May 2013

This time next week we will be climbing in the Pyrenees. Last Friday morning I was spraying our sleeping bags with Permethrin. It was the first sunny day that I could do this outside and have enough time to air and dry the bags. You see last year when we walked from Ponferrada, because it was for 10 days, I was able to book small hotels in advance. This time because we will be on the road, so to speak, for about 34 days it is not possible to book in advance. We have booked small hotels for the first two nights and for Pamplona. After that it is pot luck. We will have to stay in Albergues.  Albergues are hostels and accommodation is usually in bunk beds with additional overflow space on mattresses on the floor. If you have seen the film, the Way, with Martin Sheen and Jimmy Nesbitt, it gives you a good idea of trying to sleep in an Albergue, with maybe 60 bunks to a room. Anyway, we will have the experience of Albergue accommodation and their dreaded bedbugs. Even though the Albergues are chemically cleaned, monthly, the bedbugs live in mattresses and can cause major problems.  Hence the spraying with Permethrin which is highly toxic but hopefully will keep the bugs away from us. By the time we get to an Albergue we will be so knackered that bedbugs won't matter, and anyway,Mary is more concerned that she cannot take her hair straighteners than she is of bedbugs.
On the subject of nasty things. How long does it take the Ulster Bank to set up a charity account that requires money to be deposited and only two cheques to be written in September? Answers written on the back of Ulster Bank notes. Seriously, we still don't have account details yet.

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