WAITING FOR PILGRIMS

The pilgrims are beginning to return, like the Swallows, but sooner. We saw ten in an hour yesterday morning. The villagers and us agree that, what with the financial woes and unemployment, there may well be an explosion in numbers along the Camino this year. There was anyway last year, before all this started.
Hard to know what it will mean to us. We suspect that a great many pilgrims will not have any money. Reb heard one last year, a Canadian, clad in top of the range walking gear, say, "Is this place donativo, or do we have to pay?"
(Donativo, of course, means making a donation.)
We shall see.

TODAY´S THOUGHT
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
H. L. Mencken

Bear the above thought in mind after reading the story below, from today´s Guardian:

An embarrassing public row broke out last night between City minister Lord Myners and Sir Fred Goodwin over the former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive's refusal to give up his £693,000 a year pension.
Just hours later Myners issued a letter telling Goodwin his refusal to reconsider was "unfortunate and unacceptable". He hoped "on reflection you will now share my clear view that the losses reported by the bank which you ran until October cannot justify such a huge reward".
RBS had earlier admitted it had made a record-breaking £24bn loss in 2008 and that the taxpayers' stake could rise to 95% after a further injection of up to £25.5bn of government funds.