Where's Bertie? He's still in the Aire at Ricote.
Weather: Another cool start, but cloudless all day and warming to a pleasant afternoon.
As I type this there is a whole mob of scooters sitting to one side of the car park and brightly coloured pigeons are flying overhead. When I say 'brightly coloured' I mean that they have been dyed in greens, blues, reds and yellows. We have no idea what is going on, but guess it is some sort of competitive event.
It all started this morning, a few minutes before I got back from a run that featured a lot more uphill than I've been accustomed to of late. According to Mick, a small group arrived in cars and on scooters, all clutching pigeon carriers, and as I entered the car park Mick was already outside watching them flying circuits.
About an hour later the men left and we knew not what had become of the birds. We thought that was the end of it, then this afternoon there was the leap-out-of-your-skin bang of a maroon going off (I'm assuming this was related; it may have been coincidental) and ten minutes or so later a bird-carrying truck appeared outside of the Aire, more people arrived with their own carriers, and it all started over again, but this time with bigger numbers, with scooters zipping up and down the lanes and with chaps wearing official looking waistcoats and talking into walkie-talkies.
Every now and then the birds land in this tree, whereupon everyone stares at the tree until they emerge.
Don't think you can see the bright colours of the birds, can you?
In between the fancy pigeoning, Mick had some work to do this afternoon (worry not, it's voluntary, he's not accidentally fallen out of retirement), so I took myself off for a walk. One of the things I want to do whilst we're here is to visit the castle ruins on top of a nearby small hill. I walked to the foot of that hill this afternoon and nearly went up it, knowing that I could be up and back before Mick finished his phone call, but I decided it would be unfair to do that without Mick, so I made do with a bit of pottering around the village instead.
Mick, of course, also needed a leg-stretch, so he did that later whilst I took advantage of his absence to get the floor swept and finally to effect a temporary fix for the fly screen on the main door that has been loose for a while (damage that occurred last summer when the door blew shut whilst the fly screen was deployed).
Oh, and there was cake today too! The 'panaderia' is located in amongst the maze of tiny village streets, looking very much like a house, but identified by a small sign. Entering, we found what appeared to be half the village already there, with more customers arriving every moment. It was a crowded space, with no orderly queuing and we wondered if we would ever reach the front. Of course, we did and we were served with smiles in spite of our lack of language skills. The wares hit the spot nicely:
A soft meringue for Mick, a sponge affair for me. These plus four bread rolls came to just €2.30
Weather: Another cool start, but cloudless all day and warming to a pleasant afternoon.
As I type this there is a whole mob of scooters sitting to one side of the car park and brightly coloured pigeons are flying overhead. When I say 'brightly coloured' I mean that they have been dyed in greens, blues, reds and yellows. We have no idea what is going on, but guess it is some sort of competitive event.
It all started this morning, a few minutes before I got back from a run that featured a lot more uphill than I've been accustomed to of late. According to Mick, a small group arrived in cars and on scooters, all clutching pigeon carriers, and as I entered the car park Mick was already outside watching them flying circuits.
About an hour later the men left and we knew not what had become of the birds. We thought that was the end of it, then this afternoon there was the leap-out-of-your-skin bang of a maroon going off (I'm assuming this was related; it may have been coincidental) and ten minutes or so later a bird-carrying truck appeared outside of the Aire, more people arrived with their own carriers, and it all started over again, but this time with bigger numbers, with scooters zipping up and down the lanes and with chaps wearing official looking waistcoats and talking into walkie-talkies.
In between the fancy pigeoning, Mick had some work to do this afternoon (worry not, it's voluntary, he's not accidentally fallen out of retirement), so I took myself off for a walk. One of the things I want to do whilst we're here is to visit the castle ruins on top of a nearby small hill. I walked to the foot of that hill this afternoon and nearly went up it, knowing that I could be up and back before Mick finished his phone call, but I decided it would be unfair to do that without Mick, so I made do with a bit of pottering around the village instead.
Mick, of course, also needed a leg-stretch, so he did that later whilst I took advantage of his absence to get the floor swept and finally to effect a temporary fix for the fly screen on the main door that has been loose for a while (damage that occurred last summer when the door blew shut whilst the fly screen was deployed).
Oh, and there was cake today too! The 'panaderia' is located in amongst the maze of tiny village streets, looking very much like a house, but identified by a small sign. Entering, we found what appeared to be half the village already there, with more customers arriving every moment. It was a crowded space, with no orderly queuing and we wondered if we would ever reach the front. Of course, we did and we were served with smiles in spite of our lack of language skills. The wares hit the spot nicely:
That's bizarre about the pigeons. Looks like fabulous Grande Randonée walking country.
ReplyDeleteThere will be more about the pigeons in today's post.
DeleteI haven't seen any GR markings around here, but there are plenty of PRs. On another occasion (when not so focussed on running and when without having just done a mischief to my leg) I reckon that this is another place where we could happily spend a week walking through all the nearby hills.