France – Walking without a donkey

Walking without a donkey - travels in France, Walking without a donkey - travels in Spain

Pontorson, La Berniére, Port de Pornic, Zaragoza – France/Spain 10

Pontorson 10.5.17; Brittany circular, coastal walk / ‘les balades’ (rambles) / ‘les randonnées’ (hikes) – La Bernière to Port de Pornic 11.5.17, both France.

Journey via Bla Bla Car to Zaragoza, Spain 12.5.17.

DSC_2127 (640x360) — Youth hostel, Pontarson, Normandy, France.

On the Camino Francés in Spain, the hostels are where you meet other backpackers and exchange tales. Up until today, I had not encountered anyone in France, but the two women I had seen the previous night were breakfasting when I got down to the youth hostel kitchen. After being initially engaged in (French) conversation with a rather interested man who told me he did all sorts of work, anything he was asked to do, and then kissed me goodbye (yes, the dangers of being a single female traveller!), I was invited to sit with them for a while. They asked me what I was up to and after explaining, I was enthusiastically given a piece of paper by Lysiane, with her name and address on it, and told that if I ever visited Brussels I could stay with her in return for Shiatsu. Almost everyone I meet and talk to knows what Shiatsu is and likes it; it really is quite notable compared with the UK.

DSC_2130 (640x360) — Station, Pontorson from where I got my first and only train during this month. Goodbye Normandy!

Myself and a number of others arrived at the station before it opened. It was unclear to us all how we should get tickets and where to go, until a brusque woman came to open up. We waited in the gorgeous sun before realising we needed to cross the tracks for the stopping train to Rennes which I had booked online the day before. A Japanese couple regaled us, as we waited, with a comparison between the efficiency of French signposting and the contrasting confusion in Britain.

My day’s walk on the Brittany coast began in the rain at La Bernière-en-Retz, a small town where a lot of street work was being carried out, but that was otherwise deserted. The sea was well out, revealing broad sands with low stone walls. I felt immensely light-hearted, as happy as I was when walking in northern Spain in the Autumn of 2016.

The path was easy to find and varied. Sometimes it was on cliffs, at others beside dwellings. Always there was the expansive view of the water, with miniscule collectors of seafish in the distance. After a while there was a series of platforms from which hung voluminous lift-nets. I was told that when the tide is in, these fill with fish. These traditional ‘carrelets’ are expensive apparently, but bring high yields and are found all along this coast.

The low stone walls are also demarcations related to fishing, left over from many years ago, and easily seen at certain times of the day.

Elegant hotels and old people’s homes line parts of the shore.

Grassy paths wound up and over the rocks, seagulls shrieked, and the fresh breeze bought welcome fragrances of the cypress trees.

Picnic lunch was taken (illegally, it transpired) under ancient stones to shelter from the wet.

Port de Pornic with its gentle harbour, silver grey turrets, and small yachts came as a surprise. Rather quaint and sophisticated by turns, it is quite a centre but I did not investigate. Instead, here I turned and headed back the way I had come, stopping to divest myself of waterproof trousers as the sun started to show itself, seeing things from back-to-front and in a different light, literally.

The next day I took a Bla Bla Car from Bordeaux, via Bayonne, Irun, and Pamplona to Zaragoza to stay with the genial Yvonne.

I needed a brandy while waiting in the extreme heat of midday.

Bla Bla Car is generally unknown in the UK. It is a fantastic system, originally set up so that someone who is making a long-distance journey has company while they drive. Nowadays some complain that it has become a sort of glorified taxi service, but on the whole I found it to be a social thing.

It operates in France and Spain, and there is a website where you search for the setting-off point and destination, and then identify who you might like to go with. Like air bnb, the drivers are vetted and reviewed, and you can guarantee that the cost is less than the cheapest mode of public transport for that same journey. Sometimes the driver reserves the right to choose, and although you have paid (I used PayPal for safety), you can be rejected, and then the fee is repaid immediately.

In fact, it was often tricky to find a train or bus which goes went a to b at the times I was searching, whereas it was always possible to find someone who was driving, once you got the hang of the site. And of course I met fascinating people. On the first leg, from Bordeaux to Bayonne, I sat in the back with a young woman who told me all about her life, parents, health and loves, showing me photos and shedding a tear now and then.

Bayonne station, France. Most of the Bla Bla Car pick-ups happen at well known sites.

Passing through Irun on the mountainous border.

At Pamplona we said good luck to two gentlemen who had both injured themselves on the Camino, been home to recover, and were re-joining it there. Then Charles, the car owner, and I made the final leg to Zaragoza, arriving at the radio station with messages flying between myself, my expectant host, and the driver. I have found all the drivers this month to be courteous and obliging. It was good that I had my daughter’s old Nokia with a topped-up Spanish SIM in it as we were late and so I was able to communicate by text and phone.

I had been asked several times why I was bothering to go to Zaragoza. It seems to have a poor reputation with tourists as a predominantly industrial city. My reasons for going: Yvonne kindly invited me when I met her at her father’s funeral and that was my plan – if I am invited somewhere I go, that’s how I choose between all the possible amazing places in Spain. Result: it was a fascinating and enjoyable place to visit, made considerably better I am sure by being shown around and treated like a queen by a resident!

Walking without a donkey - travels in France

Granville to Gênets – France

Granville to Genêts, Normandy coastal walk GR223. 7.5.17.

1.5 days walking. The longest walk at 9.5 hours and more climbing than any other étape (stage). 40kms

Leaving Granville just as it was getting light.

See how the colours start to appear with the sun.

Banks of soft cow parsley are dropping with dew.

My last walk was in Spain at harvest. Now it is spring, and time for sowing.

There are maps like this all along the way. Allows you to get your bearings.

I pass through the coastal edges of villages and along promenades, with a wide range of fresh-air art and information points. Of course I am not 19 years old as Laurie Lee was, but this part of ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’ resonates with me. I am lucky not to have back ache when I walk, only tired feet after a while: ‘The next day, getting back onto the London road, I forgot everything but the way ahead. I walked steadily, effortlessly, hour after hour in a kind of swinging, weightless realm. I was at that age which feels neither strain nor friction, when the body burns magic fuels, so that it seems to glide in warm air, about a foot off the ground, smoothly obeying its intuitions. Even exhaustion, when it came, had a voluptuous quality, and sleep was caressive and deep, like oil.’ Yes, that is exactly what sleep feels like at the end of that sort of a day.

A massive deck chair – part of a children’s playground.

One by one along the seashore, 10 paces or so apart.

Then I realise, these are the different stages of marine weather, famous from the Shipping Forecast.

A man in his pyjamas, dressing gown, and slippers assured me there was no bar/câfé in this village at 9.30am. I had no breakfast before I left which was an obstacle – silly -it was too early in the day to be hungry and thirsty.

With a building which was not too different from a Kentish oasthouse.

There were more hills and valleys than any of the previous days, and my rucksack was feeling heavy, but I forget that in the lovely countryside. Narrow paths split the greenery, while tough grass and golden gorse wrap around the sharp-edged cliffs.

I briefly ask myself ‘Why come away from home to walk?’ and immediately the answer is clear: because it is so very beautiful and peaceful.

There is a man with two wives and a dozen children, or so I fancy. The kids scrape past me from behind on their bikes and give me a shock. No-one says hello. The bright green ferns with their heads curled over, stand up like meerkats.

Down a picturesque flight of steps I go, into an historic dell. Anyone who does what I do knows that after 4 hours of walking, going downstairs is hard work, especially when it is slippy from the previous day’s rain, so I take them gingerly like a toddler.

It was quite magical down in Painter’s Valley, once a haunt of famous artists. I imagine them with their easels and floppy hats, just glimpsing each other through the foliage, brandishing brushes.

OMG! then 200 steps up again, followed by a rest to breathe and pull my socks back up after they had slid into my shoes.

I take two minutes for a pee, drink of water, and view of Jullouville beach with its glorious view of huts and horses. A loud male voice interrupts my musings. Round the corner, it turns out to belong to someone trying to impress the girls.

I ate my banana, bread and chocolate for lunch on a bridge. All filling the air was birdsong. There was sun on my legs, and real contentment, despite the slightly slimy seat. For a minute I thought I might see Ratty and Mr Toad of Toad Hall.

The cuckoos seem to be following me down the coast: birds which sleep in someone else’s nest.

At this stage I am further 3 hours from Genets and I am about level with Bouillon, where I was supposed to be 2 days ago. There are simple roads, simple hedgerows, and I take regular steps, my thoughts rich with the wild flowers.

It is utterly wonderful, my favourite sort of countryside.
Footsore, I remind myself to take it step by step, ‘poco à poco’ so I can manage the distance without injury.

And a caterpillar nursery which I pointed out to a little girl running ahead of the family, silently, so I didn’t scare her.

Just above my head I spot someone coasting on the wind in a hang glider. I could not tell if it was a man or woman. I watched and watched as s/he hung there, coasting on currents at a gentle pace, and I imagined what that view must be like.

The sweetest smell of earth, grass and flowers; raggedy white campion and curled up ferns. Runners thanked me as I stood aside to let them pass and was rewarded with a backlash of heady body smell. The slow roller-coaster slalom rocks are ahead of me, the oaks alongside, and hot waves of birds in meadows are on my left.

I reached a high point with more abandoned stone remains and exchanged brief French with a father coming in the opposite direction, who asked, what is the lie of the land beyond? Turns out he had a ‘poussette’, a push chair, with a baby in it. As I walked on I wondered how they had managed that far with either no path at all, or huge rocks to clamber over.

I continued with a light heart. If you look carefully you will see how often nature intertwines plants of contrasting colours.

I take donkeys as a sign that I am on the right track, given the name of my blog.

Reminding me of the Camino. I add a stone in memory of Hugh.

At 2.30 I started to think about a cup of tea again, and St Jean le Thomas was my reward.

And today’s French elections to read about.

Then at 4pm, oh, the first sighting of Mont Saint-Michel in the distance.
I began to ask ‘How far to Genets?’ which was a mistake. Either my walking pace was slow or they did not really know. It was just frustrating to think ‘just 20 minutes’, only to discover it was actually a full two hours later that I arrived at the Auberge de Jeunesse. I do so by the road from the beach at Bec d’Andaine, even though a kind beach-surfer type stops his car and kindly suggests I take the path. I think I was too tired to risk taking the wrong way. As Laurie Lee puts it, I was walking ‘in a mirage of solitary endurance’ by that time.

Darkling, it was such a relief to arrive at the youth hostel, where I had to book ahead because of the bank holiday weekend. What a great welcome from the guy in charge: amazing service.

I shower, change, wash out my dirties, settle in to my ‘private’ room with wonderful crisply ironed white cotton sheets (as usual I am the only single woman, so I am again lucky with accommodation). And then I walked, well limped a little, into the immensely attractive village. There are streets of brown/grey-stone houses, all with climbers and gardens full of flowers. They have white-rimmed windows with lace curtains, and there are 3 restaurants which all fill up quickly.

The votes are starting to come in, and the man on my right is checking his phone every few minutes, arguing with his wife, and updating the rest of us round the restaurant. It is very tense with folk scared that Madame Le Pen will win, but as the evening goes on Macron seems to be the victor.

Food tastes so delicious after a walk! A very salty, ‘gallette’ (pancake) with chips, salad and cider is 15 euros. Almost all the bars and eateries I have been to have played songs in English. Is it for tourists? I am not sure but this evening I think I was the only non-French speaker.

When I get back I fall into conversation with the host. Inevitably Brexit (so embarrassing), and ‘Don’t you celebrate the end of the war on 8 May?’ I tell him that many of our school children (my daughter and nephew for example) come to Normandy to see the beaches and the mass graves and find it very moving.

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, by Laurie Lee.

Auberge de Jeuness (youth hostel) website: http://www.hifrance.org/auberge-de-jeunesse/genets–baie-mont-st-michel.html

Walking without a donkey - travels in France

Saint Martin de Bréhal to Granville- France

Saint Martin de Bréhal to Granville 5.5.17 11 kms 2.5 hrs

I left the Camping de la Vanlée before 8am to find breakfast. I had given no Shiatsu and hoped that that would give me time to write the night before, but I was too tired after the walk and all that fresh air.

After the howling wind interrupted my repose, now there was the soothing sound of the waves, a man trying to start his boat motor after tractoring it backwards into the water, and the odd seagull. It was cold though.

Grey pointed rooves and white walls are typical of the architecture along this part of the coast. There are huge rocks along the landward edge of the beach and I can already see Granville, a much bigger town, coming into sight. Hmm, hungry!

’Attention un viper’ said a hennaed woman with an alsatian. ‘I want to see one’, I thought, eyes to the ground, but no.

Soft grasses, swooping swifts, watching the horses on the beach, and hearing the tiny chuck chucking bird sounding the alarm as it hovers with wings going 100s of flaps to the minute.

On I walked, my knee complaining again. What does it do, I ask myself? It makes me pay attention to how I step, how my weight is distributed.

People warned me it would not be the same walking the second time (after the Camino Francés, Via de la Plata, and Sierra Calderona in Spain), and they were right of course: I have changed; I have reflected; written about my experiences; and integrated many of them. The pleasure is equal, however.

Kids are rock-pooling, there are colourful beach huts, and many people stop and ask about me and what I am up to, as I enter Granville. I regard a man taking advantage of the breeze, and flying a kite in figures of eight.

The swimming pool amongst the rocks on the edge of the sea is deserted at this hour. There are steep green cliffs with a beach at the bottom. As I climbed, I inadvertently entered a cemetery with great views across the bay. Huge mausoleums and ancient crosses are all crowded together.

I turn right on the outskirts of the town, getting accustomed to the traffic noise, and a house straight out of ‘Madeline’, a book by Ludwig Bemelmans (and film), which I shared with my daughters when they were young.

Then I saw a sign which I spontaneously followed to the Jardin (garden) de Christian Dior. I sat in the sun (and wind), shut my eyes and listened to the water, and to a particularly tuneful chanteuse (bird!). I smell the roses, and imagine that my walking baton is an elegant cane and I am strolling in my couture garments in the 1950’s.

Dior had a life shorter than mine has already been, and this gorgeous place captured my imagination. (See below for ticket information).

It turns out that the walk I am on, ‘mon chemin’, actually passes through the garden, though I had lost it and only come on a whim!

There are wonderful views from the Dior gardens.

Back down at sea level there is a hideous casino – how do town planners allow these buildings?

I suppose the casino has a sort of gothic (as in bell tower with bats) air about it.

The Hotel de Jeunesse is hard to find and shuts for a long lunch. The woman was brusque, but kindly phoned through to other places for me as it was a holiday weekend, though everywhere was full.

I had a room to myself, and was forced to stay a second night, which of course turned out to be propitious as the next day it poured with rain.

There are no shortage of municipal toilets here – I could have relieved myself at every corner!

I recommend the Café Pulperia in an attractive row of shops etc very close to the hostel – the crab salad was in a plastic pot but it, the wine, and the fresh fruit salad were all delicious (€11) and I sat for ages with the wifi. There is also an Internet café next door which I spent hours in the next day (writing out of the rain).

I wander up to a church I can see. A nice woman walks up the hill with me and tells me walking is good for the heart. Unfortunately the Eglise Saint Paul is, like many I tried to visit this month, shut for repairs.

You can buy anything you want here in the busy shopping steets, with so many cars, and pretty corners. I find a public park, Les Jardins, with llamas, peacocks, chickens, goats, and 2 black swans each on one leg, all happily coexisting.

My late afternoon walk takes me to the old town at the far side and up steep steps. The buildings are worth seeing as is the Modern Art Museum, a collection of books and art work with visiting exhibitions.

to original essays gifted to the collector.

I walked back via the port.

And here are a few extra photos to persuade you that Granville and the surrounding area are well worth visiting.

I was walking GR223 Normandy coastal walk.

Camping de Vanlées – Rue des Gabions – 50290 BREHAL Tél. : 02 33 61 63 80 / Mail : camping.vanlee@wanadoo.fr

Two of the outdoor spaces at the Jardin de Christian Dior.

If you want to visit Dior’s garden, it is free. If you would like to see the house (and there is a charming tea garden), you can get free access to it if you pay to visit the Modern Art Museum, or vice versa.

Walking without a donkey - travels in France

Regnéville to Saint Martin, France 4

Regnéville to Saint Martin 4.5.17 19kms 6hrs. Part of the GR223 Sentiers des Dounaniers (see La Manche tourist website).

I relished the good political talk with Sophie last night by the fire, admired the pretty beams and attention to detail in her interior, and loved the simplicity of unrolling the futon for Shiatsu on the sitting room floor – it is such a great way to communicate with kind others. I slept in another comfy bed, with a great shower, and we drank wine together.

Outside the cottage window there is a blackbird’s nest, and we spied on them in the morning before I left to walk to Saint Martin. Regnéville is a very pretty village and I traversed it twice because I left my baton behind the first time!

It is 8.25 and all is soft and verdant in the morning, misty light. The places which were rubbed yesterday (mostly my shoulders where the rucksack straps are) feel tired. There are lots of fleeting pains as I begin. Ah yes, I remember that happens as I begin day 2.

Cuttlefish are daubed amongst the detritus from the sea; birds are collecting bits and pieces for their homes; stationery, white cows are initially silent.

It is really calm: there are so many distinctive bird voices, one or two cars, and now the cows are lowing, but no people. Instead I am having conversations with loved ones in my head. It is when there is external quiet that I can hear their voices answering my questions.

A cuckoo calls, a blue tit balances sideways on a reed. Birds of prey instead of airplanes, hovver with their magnificent eyesight. There is the ‘chack chack’ of the chaffinch, and then I remember the prediction of the Tarot before I left: a person about to walk on sand – of course, a beach, not a desert, although then it comes to me that I will visit a ‘desert’ in a few days time.

Around the corner is the beach and a dog rolls happily. School kids draw circles and collect seaweed, stones and shells to decorate them with. I realise that 99% of the joint pain I had when I left Scotland has gone.

There is the yummy odour of hot coffee and bread as I pass through Briqueville sur Mer, and a sweet, sweet smell as I then enter an avenues of trees.

Fields of potatoes are on one side, and banks of wild flowers, not unlike those I am familiar with in Kent, on the other.

I enjoy the long, sandy drives, the oniony leeks growing, and the ripples of white fleece lifted by the breeze protecting a crop I cannot see.

I make quite a big mistake then, walking on without seeing any way-signs. I went back to ask a man working his plot, and he confirmed I was right, but at the next junction I was pretty sure I was not, so back I went again. Bless him, he came after me, thinking I had misunderstood his French, but in fact he had told me where the road was and not the ‘chemin’. I stopped then for lunch, disappointed and frustrated, but the spot was so beautiful, and as I restocked, I knew that that attitude is useless: when I walk I get there when I do. That is just that.

In the caravan place I pass I glimpse a couple through the window. He reads the paper and she writes postcards. There are questions from others as I go on my way: ‘toute seule?’ ‘Without your husband?’ I think I must be quite unusual walking like this on my own in these out-of-the-way places.

A beach stretches into the distance, and there are more children, this time pushing each other in go-karts. A horse rider trots past, speaking on his mobile phone. I spot a white heron, or at least I think that is what it is, and later there is a sign, ‘heronerie’.

I really struggled to find somewhere to sleep that night. It is surprising that the La Manche tourist board recommends stages / études which have no hostels, only hotels and expensive (though lovely looking) bed and breakfasts. Reader, it is, sadly, twice as expensive to walk in France as it is in Spain. I considered bringing a tent, but was assured camping was forbidden and was not confident enough to chance it.

So I found a very expensive bed (€30) at a campsite that had no cafe, shop, kitchen, or laundry facilities. I was not impressed. I walked quite a way into the village, on the advice of the kind receptionist, but there was no food to be had anywhere in the evening, so I contented myself with lunch left-overs. The wind howled all night, and tried very hard to lift the tent off the ground.

La Manche website http://www.manche-tourism.com/gr223-coastal-path

Walking without a donkey - travels in France

Agon-Coutainville to Regnéville – France 3

Agon-Coutainville to Regnéville 3rd May 2017 22kms approx. 8 hrs.

View from my bedroom window at Agon-Coutainville.

Goodbye to Carla and Nicholas, the Tsubook couple.

I leave Agon-Coutainville at 9.15am and it is quiet as I make my way along the promenade. There is the sound of my feet, and of the sea in the distance. It is low tide and there is a smell of seaweed.

Along the promenade the evening before I leave Agon-Coutainville.

The air is cool on my skin, and I am getting into a rhythm, with a dull, white-grey sky overhead; and swirls of brown, shining water with almost yellow sand to my right. In contrast are the massive stones nearby where they are fortifying the sea wall. It is ‘home from home’ really, reminiscent of Edinburgh / Scotland.

Can you see Nicholas hiding? Also taken the day before.

It is the beginning of this new walking meditation, with lighthouses on both edges of my peripheral vision. There’s a man with a cigar between his lips, his dog trotting along in a blue harness; clear instructions on a municipal sign not to collect too many shellfish and to beware of the right season / size when you do; and a bike cycling over the do not cycle sign.

‘Doucement’ (gently) says a woman to her wolfhound. There are 100’s of child sounds, like a grounded flock of seagulls, who turn out to be from a sailing school, with its neon orange and white sails.

Now the thumb of one hand is hot and the other cold. I think it is something about the details I notice when I am walking.

Historical photo of children on the beach in 1956.

Snippets of my bad dream come in and out of my head. Worries: Will my knees hold out? Is my backpack too heavy? But then it is like someone is holding my hand once again, and I am reassured.

I wasted 10 minutes looking for someone to ask the way. Note to self: look with more care and if in doubt, keep going forward!

As I cross the dunes, a horse and rider cross my path. It’s the first time I have seen someone on his mobile while riding! It is slow walking on deep sand with the smell of the cedar trees, and the sounds of crows cawing. The sun is trying to come out, and it is windy. Once again I am reminded of home, this time the links at Gullane.

More detail now I am getting into my stride: a snail precarious on a stalk of grass; swifts darting across my vision; hearing a cuckoo. There are so many familiar flowers from hillside and garden: brambles, buttercups, veitch, and the sweetest smelling hawthorn, which I suspect is the scent that, in years to come, will take me back to Normandy.

There is a bird with equally sweet tweets, intermittently, above my head; and very, very loud crickets which are competing with the chattering mini birds.

The ‘randonnée’ signs I am starting to get familiar with – sometimes tricky to spot.

At the Pointe d’Agon, one rather slow hour later, there is a soft brown bird with white stripes which flies 360 degrees around me at eye level – you know, those birds which do little, repeated, staccato swoops.

A memorial to the young men lost in the war.

Tightening the straps to stop them chaffing my shoulders, I stride on, fire-engine-siren bird calls to my right; neat turf, wet to kneel on; and uneven pits of soft-sand bunkers. The world seems to be all a-tweet and I think to myself, I could walk along here like this forever.

The sweet almond scent is continuing to surprise me if I am looking down. A bird whistles at me, challengingly, through an avenue of pines. I can feel my tummy relax.

An oval of standing stones, a modern sculpture.

There are not many insects compared to all the birds: a wispy white flying something, a stubby black fluffy caterpillar, but not much else.

One of the many lighthouses. This one on the edge of the main estuary between Agon and Regnéville.

When I am amongst the trees I can hear the wind, but not otherwise. Here begins the long sweep around the bay, and I could do with a cup of tea.

One of the many attractive signs to help you position yourself.

The tide is way out, so there are beached boats balancing on their rudders; sharp marine grass; and broken shells underfoot. Buttercups totter in the cold windyness. I hear a distant church bell and smell the sheep as they say ‘huh huh huh’.

These signs are getting familiar and give quite accurate indications of distance and time between stages.

Here are the first group of fellow ramblers/randonneurs coming in the opposite direction. In all my walks to Mont-Saint-Michel I do not see a single other backpacker.

This poster shows the different sorts of shellfish.

Washes of miniature, dead crabs, and piles of oyster shells litter the path. Fields of broadbeans are beside me. At noon there is finally sun and butterfly #1.

Now there is a gorgeous odour of cow parsley, scuttling spiders on the clay, and pods of empty cells the size of my hand – dry and papery. Ah, I am stiff now, tireder, and assailed by the smell of dung!

Crossing La Sciene river, after 3 hrs, and a most welcome cuppa (I will come clean: I had to go back for my baton), I then realised my beloved Coquille Saint Jaques shell had broken off and gone forever, but I was given an alternative by the kind hostellier at La Bonne Auberge at the same moment.

I cross and skirt around the mouth of the Est, pass Tourville sur Siene, and there is a stretch of long, wet grass with a very narrow gulley to walk in. Here I suffer my first fall – I think I topple when I am hungry.

Flat, white-ended little birds are bounding through the reeds like rabbits. Carla’s delicious sourdough pizza is a welcome mid-day lunch in the sun. Yes, of course I am lying in my bra – there is no-one for miles around and I am sure I need the vitamin D.

After my sunbathe when I watch the art-deco Marbled White black and white butterfly (symbol of transformation), I feel re-energised, taste some wild garlic, help myself to a leaf of wild mint, chew a sprig of fennel (to remind me of last year’s Camino), and enjoy the church with a cock on top. Now it is time to get the pole out and I hope there are no tics.

The lilac and honeysuckle are both out, but the map showed I was actually in the sea, and I started to feel lost. It is now extremely wet underfoot. The smartly coutured ducks cheer me up, but there is a lot of improvising having to go on on these wetlands.

Nature is wonderful isn’t it? I spot urea coloured dungflies blending in!

There’s time to reflect that I forget conversations quite often, even though I hear myself denying that I have; and I realise once again that I have absolutely no idea of the future and how it will turn out.

By 4.30 I am so stiff and glad to arrive at Regnéville. Last night I searched Shiatsu practitioners in Normandy. The lovely Sophie Blondel was at the top of the list and miraculously lived at my next day’s stopping place. I phoned her on the off-chance ( in French btw!) and not only did she pick up the phone, but she immediately said ‘yes’ I could come and stay with her in return for Shiatsu.

So that’s what I did. What a star! How amazing to be the sort of person who just says ‘yes’! We had the best evening, what with the session, chats about our work (it turned out that we share the same teacher in Suzanne Yates), and her adorable cottage.

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