It's flight day, but there was time to walk up to the cross behind the monastery, where I saw a goat at the top of the tree. Time also to visit the botanical garden, which was small, winding and beautiful, with lots of water running from pond to pond. A delight, although I bet they have to keep on top of the marestail or it'll take over. Two photos from the gardens, marestail and papyrus, and one of the view this morning from my window.

Edit: I took my poles to Elizabeth's room for her to put in the hold luggage, and found she had decent pillows. Oh bother, she doesn't use a pillow at all, so I could've had one of them if I'd only asked!

It's been a good walk, although not as high level as I imagined (I should do my homework better), and mostly the leadership has been good. The only two criticisms are that our photos have been used without permission, I'm pretty sure there was nothing in the notes to say that might happen, and that there were a couple of people in the group who weren't anywhere near fit enough, and who shouldn't have been there. Companies such as Exodus make a walk's demands very clear and give you a training programme suitable for the grade of the trip. I appreciate that some people will want/try to do a trip anyway, but in this case the three people, all over 80, who had trouble were people who had done one or more trips with the leader previously, and therefore she should've known that they couldn't cope. One woman only did one walk, another only did two walks, both were extremely slow. Ron managed all the walks but one, but he was a bit of a liability and a danger to himself, covered in bruises by the end and members took turns to walk behind him to watch him. I did that for two days, caught him by the rucksack once, but it wasn't much fun being behind him as he'd go quickly for several steps, then stop, before lurching forward again. At the end our leader said he should get some more walking shoes... he said he'd only had them for 10 years and they were from M&S..... omg, not much tread left and definitely no Vibram. He asked me how much my shoes were, but said that was way too much although I told him he could get shoes with decent soles for less than that. He put his difficulties down to his age. True, but shoes can give a lot of security and it all helps.

The company we went with is called AdsVentures run by Adelene Cogill IML
She says on her website:- A simple grading system is used for walks. The fewer the number of footprints the more leisurely the walk and the greater the number of footprints the more challenging the walk! 
All well and good, but it doesn't really mean anything!

Extra: a last look at the Tramuntana mountains