Wednesday 13 March - Torquemada

Where's Bertie? He's looking at the churchyard wall*, at an Aire in the village of Torquemada, just to the north of Palencia (not to be confused with Plasencia, where we were yesterday). Exact location: 42.03709, -4.31602.
Weather: Glorious start and finish, but a bit of high level cloud during the latter parts of the drive.

We've been blessed with a whole string of night stops that have been away from any significant road noise, but that run came to an end last night. I can't say it disturbed me as such, but when I did come to, I noticed it.

The other thing we noticed both last night and this morning were multiple tannoy announcements. I pictured one of those cars going around with speakers on the roof and wondered how important the message was. It was Mick who was observant and, on our way out for this morning's run, spotted that we were parked opposite the bus station.

Mick had a successful run. I didn't, abandoning after half a mile due to a painful cramplike pain in my hip. Hopefully just a spasm that won't recur. After grabbing a fleece and gloves, I made do with walking smaller circuits whilst Mick ran four laps of the perimeter of the park.

There then ensued a few hours of driving, broken only by a lunch break at a motorway service area. I should have taken the wheel after that break, but given the choice between driving or knitting, I chose the latter to pass the time, whilst Mick happily did chauffeuring duties.

Glorious sky, but snow on that there hill (we climbed quite a bit today, which combined with the headwind wasn't good for the fuel consumption stats).

Until about 20 minutes before arrival, when I reset the SatNav to Torquemada, Palencia had been our destination. We've been there twice before and, because it's a bit of a detour from the motorway, there was no time difference between going there or coming here, but here put us further north.

This afternoon's walk was based on recceing a running route for the morning (fingers crossed for that!), but it also served to give us a reasonably thorough tour of the village.

In the main, it's a tatty place with a semi-abandoned look to it. The street nearest to Bertie had us wondering about crime hereabouts, with just about every house having armour-cladding on their doors and windows:

These houses look to be in much better nick than most, so my guess is that the armour was applied when they were being renovated, then work ground to a halt and they've been left this way for protection against vandals/thieves/squatters.

The village centre, near to the main square, is perhaps a little better presented...

 ...but even there, it only takes an about turn to reveal some real quality construction:

Then the far end of town is an odd mix of run down and cheap-looking housing, right opposite a number of huge new(ish) builds.

What is easy on the eye is the historic bridge over the river and the adjacent mill(?):

 As for the weather/season, whilst our walk was undertaken entirely under blue skies, it is clear that somewhere along the way today we drove out of summer and into spring. It's no longer shorts-and-tshirt weather out there and the forecast says it's going to get down to 1 degree tonight.

^{(*We made like Goldilocks and tried three spaces, in various orientations, before we settled for the corner slot, nose-in. It means we haven't a view (not that there's much of one if we were facing the other way) but we're level.)}