And soon after leaving Premery we were deep in the French countryside again.
This gives a feel for what the walking was like at times, but despite its appearance, it was still a joy to do.
And it didn't put off our little feathered friends who flew up and down the road with great glee then posed for us on the fence wire.
Some bits from Ian’s Blog at the time:
Wet road walking (05/05/2010)
In the shade of your hat, your sheltering hood, inside the sealed skin of waterproofs the muffled stride and steady drone of rain is interrupted by the careless swooping spray of cars and driving wave of water from the side-sweeping roar of lorries.
It is often hard to talk, the ideas you have are intruded on by visiting vehicles and passing close calls. The cattle watch and sometimes follow as you pass the fields, the sheep huddle on steaming piles of dung, their newly shorn backs shivering from the cold and rain. Lifted by a shared packet of little biscuits or the sweet/sour French sweets tightly wrapped in clear cellophane, we walk and share broken conversations while feeling for leaks in jackets and the effects of steadily dampening feet. Light jokes and snatches of song punctuate the silence as we climb the next hill before we stop to drink water under a tree and review the route on our maps and texts.
Thinking of dry clothes, hot coffee and weight free feet – better together than on our own. Better with a purpose and a place to head for.
Music therapy
Sitting on the bed in a truckers’ hotel in Premery after walking through heavy rain with everything drying I have put some of Alison’s MP3 player music on the mini-laptop and I have been doing things (mainly trying to dry my leaky boots) while Bob Dylan has been singing to us.
Now we are playing our daughter’s band (well the only four tracks that we have of her music) as I sit and do some writing/collecting some of the most recent bits and bobs onto one file for publishing.
The music in my head needs recharging so this is all good. We have also listened to a bit of Jake Thackray’s stuff and will listen to a bit more later. Dominique has stopped singing and we now have a bit of David Bowie asking if there is life on Mars. Not sure about that but wonder just how much life is left in the French countryside sometimes when we are looking for places to stop and to stay. Just checked the updates on the French Amis des Pelerins website and it is scary what seems to have been scored out rather than added in....
The music will help but the options for night stops are not as good as we had expected and in some cases seem to be declining as we go. Ho hum.... look at those pilgrims go, it’s the best selling show... is there life on....
Alison's Log Camino Day 32 Jeudi 6/5/10 - Premery to Coulanges/Nevers
It was still very grey and damp when we set off today; but less strong rain and no wind to speak of so much less cold than yesterday (and I had put on an extra T shirt and packed my rucksack with the bivvy bag as a complete internal waterproof shield. Also, Ian had a go at mending his cracked and leaky boots last night using material and glue from the air bag mending kit....
We agreed to try for two stops if the weather wasn’t very good so we stopped in a bar at Pousieux. Very smoky and we were the only customers but the coffee was good and we had the chance to eat the pain au raisins we bought in the boulangerie before leaving Premery.
Then we decided to head down the road to Guerigny rather than follow the path – this cut a few Kms off the distance but meant that we had to walk along a fairly busy road. There were occasional lorries but the spray was nowhere near as bad as yesterday.
When we got to Guerigny we found (eventually) a restaurant and I had a pizza and the others had pasta dishes (Nb Dugald paid so we own him... pay him when we get to a cash machine in Nevers). It was too much to eat at lunch time, I think.
Eventually the rain dried up but the sun didn’t really come out – Betty and I could see faint shadows for Ian and Dugald but nothing even vaguely bluish or sun like visible in the sky (except some lightning!).
We have spent our first evening with “domestic hosts” – the conversation has been a bit difficult because of language but we have been welcomed and offered showers and fed (and wined) well. No washing of clothes was suggested and it was too difficult to ask. Tomorrow we take the suburban bus into the centre of Nevers and try to do shopping and perhaps find a launderette before walking the next stage. It’s been election day in Britain – strange not to be there ... what will happen?
Also concerned not to have heard from Kirsty our daughter, we will buy postcards and stamps tomorrow...
Our coffee stop was in another place where it looks like an ex-serviceman is running the joint. But this is a different story. A pretty building set back from a main road to Nevers on the edge of a pretty village with some interesting buildings and with a lot of potential. But the owner was a sullen, chain-smoker who looked very ill to me. I suspected he was suffering from something bad, possibly cancer.
When Dugald entered the bar he immediately reacted to the smoke, said he would not be able to deal with it because of his asthma and left the door open. The barman basically told him to shut it and, if he didn’t like the smoke he could sit outside. Dugald remained indoors and suffered.
The place was partially finished and customerless (apart from ourselves, of course). The man served very good coffee but sat by the bar smoking and reading the local right wing paper. When I went to the loo I noticed the large cupboard next to it was open and inside I could see various children’s toys and books piled haphazardly inside. The sign of a man whose family no longer live with him, is what I felt and it added to the foreboding I felt in the place.
The feeling remained with me like a clinging fog or smoke-reek for some time after we left the place.
Check out the placemarks numbers 89 and 90 on our map (click on the side panel to get the link). The street view lets you look along the road and aroung the small town we had lunch in. But Nevers seems to be one of the cities in France not covered by Google street view yet...
Here is the road we walked down after our coffee stop.
And our lunch stop - the son of the owner was into vintage motorcar racing and had great pictures on the walls.
Here is a final section from the blog for today. I was writing things as we went and then posted blogs when I had a signal or access to someone’s wifi.
And now.... (06/05/2010)
We are staying in a lovely house on the edge of Nevers with two people who have walked the Camino and host pilgrims. They have just 'phoned up and booked our next stop south of here and are making food as we get ourselves clean, etc. Their house is beautiful!
We walked through deep, misted valleys and along the side of busy roads for part of today and ended up emerging from the clouds into the suburbs of Nevers as the sun pushed the grey away for a brief while.
All in good spirits, we are praying that things go well in the elections, that our proxy votes work and that we will eventually return to a country that has avoided a Tory landslide..... Bon courage to you all, we miss you but are happy pressing on, even if my boots do leak (because even if they do, we still end up finding places full of hospitality, warmth and heaters that dry what needs to get dry, etc.... This is the nature of walking the Camino and of being pilgrims.
Happy days!
Our hosts fed us a very nice (slightly too salty) stew of ham and puy lentils which I enjoyed enormously and is one of the recipes that I have played around with on my return.
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