A rebel without a clue.

The mornings are golden. Early it is perfect walking weather, but by noon, or one pm, it is stifling. This morning i am heading a little south off the Chemin. So now I wait in Marcillac, a Vin AOP district, for a nine o'clock bus to Rodez. I have a number of irons in the fire of possibility for the next two night's accommodation (three of I am including one night about Bishop's Stortford too). First stop is the Presbyter next to the cathedral in Rodez. One of my personal dislikes about French manners is their tendency to say "Bon Appetite" when you're eating anything. What a throw away comment Good Appetite/Eating is - surely you can see I have a mouth full of pan, fromage au sauisson sec so surely I have a good appetite or I am eating. The other minor dislike are the number of conversations where "demain" is used. Everyone seems to only living for tomorrow so here I leave them today to their passionless conversations and catch another bus and it...

Mindfulness over a mining town tomorrow. There is a means of skirting around the north of Decazevilles. Tomorrow will be tough and it will be much more important to arrive a Conques without going into the cauldron of woes in Decazevilles. The hosts at Bio Gîte, who I find a little cold so far for Hippy types - too many instruction "do that" "don't do that", are going to be doing breakfast very early, which is OK with me. Awake for 6am. Depression is something that overwhelms me at times, usually at what seems an impossible time to be in that mode. I've just begun another Chemin and I need to lift my spirit. The views are divine, there is none of the Cicadas or Grasshoppers, nettles are lining the road sides and I crouched to shit in a toilet which was just a hole in the ground. Oh the road is warming, but it's not mountains. If I look at it it scuttles away into a deep ocean cave, waiting to come out whenever it can, it knows my fragility. Why did I c...

This is impossible. The heat is becoming unbearable, I am inheriting a moody sullen malaise - nothing will fix this. There are two options for tomorrow. Walk or bus. It is finished, back in Conques. Last time it saved me from the savaging of the Aubrac, but this time if feels like corporate pilgrimacy has come to town, this time it saves me from it's own illusion. For each pilgrim there should be a questionnaire to get below their faux pretence - an analysis beyond their skin to find out what dark mysterious secrets are smuggled in that body. I was here by around 2pm. The Abbey is a focal point from above the gorge and I was looking forward to it, but I am now just underwhelmed. Meh tourists. *** A brigade of youthful Germans are in the Abbey Sainte Foy; I don't know why? They're planning cards and talking as though they were everyone. When the war was lost Hitler put boys in uniform, gave them temperamental grenade launchers and watched a future fall: and he blamed the...

I decided not to be with the other pilgrims for dinner last night. After a some slices of Coeur du Boeuf, half of the saussion sec, some dried figs, bread and most of the bottle of Gaillac I decided the conversation between the volunteers (hosts) and another gentleman were judging far too many persons on the chemin so I went up to bed. Although there are always those who don't get it, and will use Donativo for their family too, any person who had just walked 25 kilometres in 32° deserves a Donativo evening anywhere. There are far too many capitalists who are hungry to use the pilgrim to have a simple, stationary life. The town of Estella in Spain only exists as it was built to service passing pilgrims - it is a fact and it is even a proud heritage found in the history books. This morning I woke too early. The German man was snoring hard and the sound of drunken Roister Doisters was traveling up to the room from somewhere along the Cele. The occasional mindless drunken annoying sho...

The Americans had a bomber (B36) designed to deliver the bomb to Russia - anywhere without refueling, it was called the Peacemaker - the killers think they're the messengers of God. Deliverance at the end of a gun. The brutal world we're in is truly a mistake. A friar is a monk of the road: take the sacred space with you. No building is needed. A couple weakness of purchases: vin blanc Fallacy, coeur du boeuf tomatoes and fromage du Tarn. One pure cow and the other 3 milks - both spectacular. The rip off of the day is possibly the train from Albi via Gaillac. Probably because it's crosses a dreaded frontier. From Tarn I head north into Lot. The weather has definitely lost its edge now which suggests that I should follow the path back along to Conques Abbey de Saint Foy. Tomorrow I am walking back along the GR 65 to Golinhac as last time I lost the plot on the Aubrac about there and now I consider I walked very little after Figeac. Such a liar I must be! But it must be do...

To paraphrase Father Murray Bodo ... Embrace that in yourself - your inner violence - look on it, respect it, but ultimately forgive it. Forgive yourself. Be gentle towards the wolf inside; be gentle there. Look at the good in your life and in that of others. Purification occurs within stillness and a state of silence. The potential to forgive myself, as well as others, occurs in an observant manner. It is our potential to open ourselves to vision of the eye of the heart. Let it be. This is Father Murray Bodo's understanding of one of the teachings of Francis of Assisi. Francis and his father were never reconciled; even though he had such love to give, and so many suggestions to make, his earthly father was beyond him. *** Another day opens up on the world. It is cloudy, but already it is breaking up. Slept soundly, but had many dreams - surreal dreams - and I blame the fabulous Cantal Jeune, that was passed round last night at the end of Repas, for this trouble. The thoughtless...

There was a trade in me just now: tears for hope, before the mythical bullshit stepped in to remind me: don't ever trust those church father's who canonised everyone in the name of their perception of who is worthy of Christ. Stigmata indeed. It is another stupid legend instead of the acceptance of a man of insight as an insightful man (woman/woman). Francis of Assisi can't just have had a point about simplicity and material destitution (from his privileged (choice) position within the mercantile elite of mediaeval Italy?). Why does everyone with a point to make about the position we've come to, as we again face moral and material dispossession in the 21st Century, become someone who has had 'Miracles' occur round about them? Then the myths get more and more irrational depending on how deified they become them? It's all about saying this person was 'much more than a reasonable human, but was sent by God, Christ, etc. to absolve 'us' of 'our...

As my age increases, into the darkness's I am witness, I am less and less interested in anything displayed in the towns I pass through - museum, gallery, castle, shop or bar. Life repeats here this morning as it did for ever. My host forgot I was here because he was on automatic, so he didn't get up for breakfast. He hastily brewed me a coffee cafeteria and comes to the apartment with a tray of breakfast spreads ... He didn't know I had bread: or was he going to return later with it? Any mind ... I couldn't do anything today really, and at eight am a bus carries me onward. It is going to scorch. Bus Ligne 301 to Clermont-d'Herault and 303 onwards. Someone spoke to me, 'a Quebec, as my body was resolving into a dream (and I think the bus driver saved me money because he said I may use the ticket at least twice again). Time to return to the dream while he returns to his hand in glove. These are deep yawns I am feeling. Where next? Saint-Pons de Thomiéres. Of co...

Just before nine pm I pack what I can, the line has my washing hanging on it (still damp), but I hardly feel the weather likely to alter much. Brewed a pot of heavy black tea to give me the strength. It's utterly silent here now. Such a relief from the frantic "dub" being played until 4am - someone informed me that 21st is the one time of year when no one requires a licence to play music! Thanks for that moment of clarity Charles de Gaulle! He, or they, thought that one long and hard - why would we actually need more music in such a noisy society? The bell chimes and at the Accueil I am joined by a couple from Germany. They seem the sensible silent types from Aachen. *** In the morning it is a time to climb the gorge, before returning to the valley for another gorge. Setting off again. Another 1km before "Le piste". The weather; it is 1pm and it is a killer! Wherever you cross a road a capitalist with zero interest in you, except to make a ton of cash, waits...

An urgent need for a toilet circling about this village looking for a discretely positioned - phew another house is open just in time. The gates have opened and the demons pour forth without restraint! And so the road goes on forever. As the sun reached its zenith, at this mid point in the calendar, and I had followed the A9 for as many kilometres as my insanity would allow. Can I walk anymore from Verdargues into Montpellier? Nine kilometres! Another option presents itself a granddaughter and grandmother in their BoHo ceramics workshop feed me fraise, pommes, etc, then promise to give me a lift to a tram stop so I won't have to walk any further in the extreme heat. ... Into the ether. Bonkers. Summer Solstice concludes at day break on the 22nd. Then my alarm awaken me again at 6am. Now Magpies battle outside the hostel and this is the last place a pilgrim should be asked to retreat to prior to another 32°. Coffee and flee! Monday morning and without wasting anymore tiredness ...

Cats calling, bin men operative and municipal strimmers timed my sleep to dreams finding a long lost shore. Annie and I at 6:30 upon the day, breakfast and a Q&A "if a pilgrimage was a ..." A school psychologist she is and it was a nice way to spend an hour. Second round of ablutions, socks on and ready for grand depart. I will turn left to visit the amphitheatre, town square before over we go. To turn left or right I will decide after the pont du ... It has come to my attention I need never rush again. The end is not an aim, neither is the start something we can revue, alter. Never has it been how we assign it. First pilgrim - going to Arles - and I think she was returning from Santiago on the Le -Puy route. So very inspiring. But we are all invisibility. A rest. My feet become a little weary. A certain tension exists on the back roads - they're still bitumen, tarmac and not once cushioned for a pilgrims tender parts , but there are a million ways to feel pain ....

The west is now either middle class possessives, drug dependent or mentally disassociated. The working classes have been 'outsourced' to the far East. In between there lies the religious fanatics for whom there is no solution other than mindless idolatry and they have been shipped in to lie alongside the soulless ex-miners in Bar Tabac. The longest day, sun beating down, as another North African argument occurred in Vauvert. The 'etape' is closed there so without further 'a-do' sort out my feet - as well as is possible. Another 13 kilometres before another chance at the dice. 21st is Sunday. Solstice. Now this town has a 'middle class' riot occurring in the cattle auction house (or is this an arena?). An unreal man with shades, highlights, EA tee steps up to the mic and there it is. To walk 30 odd kilometres today into the blue and see middle class D'oc in all its meh: Gallargues. Dance frenetically you pointless representative of the entertainment...

Car rentals, cartwheels of joy, a La carte rentals, magna carta. Take your seat 19C. Shoving adverts up your arse Ryanboar. Beware of the flight that needs to drop these empty bombs. Yet carries them all the way there, under such strain, but it is gone. The minds clouds are gone. The sky is clear. Here I am - Montpellier Airport. Now to head east! Let's see how long before I come unstuck? A bière, pan and then stop. It took two hours and five lifts to reach Arles. As I stood waiting I didn't fear. This is the Camague I thought. Tomorrow I will walk through here. Yippee. I will walk across the Rhône, bare faced. I know a switch is on. It is babble but it is distant. Away

The indicator on the bus is stable; no attack. The cardiac pulse without variation; without theme. Traveling higher into the blanket of air; another sonumbulance placed upon minds who wait to wake up dead. Take me away. Leaving the decapitated, dying and dead is my only reason. The rest is a restricting plague lesion. A passionless poison engineering. Spores invade everywhere and it becomes a mad dash to find stillness. Those who can be mindful when all is insane around them are enlightened indeed. Fucking hen and stag parties. Leeds have you nothing left inside the mind except this struggle with the damned and undead. All noise. Where is the chapel of ease Airside? Give me Truth where I can see, hear and sense distance. It is so loud that I must swear, pack away my muesli and find another area further from the violent death. The concentrated forces at work in the departure areas of an airport rip the very fabric of being apart. Banging drums, cheering sluts (you hope to marry this...

Post Apocalyptic Wetherby, on a Thursday, where teeth and eyes are reduced to glimmers. The pearls that shone are now oil smeared, leaden, musket shot which absorbs light but gives no reference. At 1017 the bus detours with me ensconced above grey haired ammonia's; bag grasping, breath gasping, lost, possessed, forgotten, forgetting, post being, past. Get me passed this blind-spot. Not to touch the earth, not to see the sun, nothing left for you to do but "run, run, run". We gather persons like the ever falling dust which has been poisoning us since coal was burnt by galley slaves to export cloth and beyond those fateful days in 1945.

Must fly; Hemmed in; to the North by Benfield Fords' destruction and South, along Braine Road, Northern Gas replacing 1950s utilities; insanity. The morning noise is deafening. Utterly defeated! Listening to Miles Davis isn't possible between drills and digger, fag smokers and the overwhelmingly smell of gas. Hastily packed - judging this much I will need. But what needs - more default notices, more arrears? Trussed up my ankles with climbing tape and step out of 42. A rapid fire photo of number 41, for photographic proofs of before and after for Adrian, and another journey begins. Much lighter than Nidderdale - sans tent. Give us back the silence of the grave, but can we ever get it back? Paradise is surely lost. We've opened the box, removed the contentedness and found spare parts; more left over than were in that box originally; the 10,000 things.

Aligning the inner and outer purpose. Doing and being in one. Out of unconscious ego thoughts and actions Awakened doing and being Consciousness Acceptance, enthusiasm and enjoyment. * This morning I left the Leeds Mind Housing Service, for which I had self referred myself in September last. It will be better if I accept Wetherby as my home on the earth. Home is a state of mind. The service in Leeds is too centralised - or is Wetherby not part of Leeds MDC . There is no escaping my mind on many occasions, i.e. the trauma of Friday and Saturday when I discovered my mother was in denial about some events in her relationship with my father. But he's been dead so long now how is it I allow him to raise his head from the rivers he is distributed in: Swan, Wharfe and Yarra? But at least 75% of the time I can operate without unbalancing the pH neutrality. Discharging myself means there is also one less reason to scuttle off to Leeds every couple of weeks. If only I move across th...

Why does she always watch telly - ghosts, serial killers, rapist and mediums? Another Day. The Departments from east to west will be Bouches du Rhône, Gard and Hérault; and Aude, Tarn or Aveyron to aim to be in Rodez for the flight back. The Good Retreat Guide refers to a few possible locale to sleep, but I think I am putting too much planning into this walk? It can't be necessary because I've managed a lot more and with less clues to where I was hoping to reach. Plus the weather will be better than the previous two occasions. My main intentions should only be dictated by what happens at the airport on the other side because if I get to Arles then that would be my first etape. The Chemin, which ever one I am on, will offer a sensible option each day. No matter how many times I fail, I will not stop trying. Sunday night. Quiet, Echkart Tolle and back to the breath.

The message has been broadcast forever, by different entities. Being in harmony between ourselves and everything else is the only means of truly arriving at the truth in all the world. An individual cannot be in a proper relationship with everything unless he release all notions, factors, forms, labels. Honour the space within the place, because here we are all One (day in and night out). Be more one in ten and not the forgotten nine. Learn to die and surely then we will become alive.

Hesitating no more I decided to hitch back to Wetherby West Yorkshire. Crossed the Esk and stood outside the Spar. Five minutes later - flashing my hastily drawn sign to York - David reverses at tells me he can take me as far as Pickering. We discuss my flight into and out of insanity. Walking and getting to grips with depression, Asperger's and ADHD (post traumatic stress disorder, dissociate disorder, etc). But in Pickering people are no neck nercs, and they squint at me as if I were the son. No I am not the Messiah! Not another commercial radio station! Why are you so thoughtless and insane with your mad chatter? With your cheesy, pointless adverts telling locals how to get stuff locally - D'oh - they don't need any of it because all business is the same business - the spring step of the devil! I hate thee radio! It is such a sinister whisper in the ear forever forcing a singular dimension onto the spaciously infinite. Music doesn't need a marble fireplace to glori...

Once upon a time ... There was a little boy who didn't look like, sound like or feel like all the other boys and girls he'd been in class with all his life: they didn't like him and used to call him names all the time, but he didn't know what to say or do to make them stop; even when they hurt him they never listened. Then he would feel very sorry that no one wanted to be his friend and only wanted to make fun of him all the time. If he ever tried to say "stop it" he just ended up really really upset because something didn't work properly in his head and got so confused. Some days he would sit and cry all day because nothing he did made any difference. The teacher were all equally mean to him because they often made him do things which he could not understand and they never explained things - or when things were fun would they suddenly clap their hands and tell the class to stop what they were doing and to pay attention to the front of the class. If they ...

So tired. Crashed out - my body is still churning over that sickness begotten at Porto Pizza. But I have ended today back at St Oswald's Pastoral Centre on the left bank of the Eskdale Valley, just outside Sleights, around 4 miles from the North Sea. Now I am in the Hillside self-catering block. The previous visit was my 43rd birthday on the 2nd February when it snowed heavily and I was forced to walk down to here from Fylingdales. It is somewhat tranquillity today: the distant sound of a prop plane, the hoot-choochoo of a steam locomotive, a very far away sawing or strimming and the call of a mighty bull in the field. The Centre is busy with a gardening retreat - keeping this plot pristine, godly, manicured; "surely I have made this only Eden yet more perfectly ordered that it pleases you to let me into Heaven?" - which must be a land of perpetual clearing, cleaning, arranging, straightening, weed killer, slug pellets and cups of tea. While I accept food is a necessit...

Why does everything I have just done suddenly feel utterly meaningless, void, trivial? Even as I crossed from the Nidderdale AONB into The Yorkshire Dales National Park, coming down from the hills and walking about Grassington, suicide crossed my mind at such an heroic achievement? An achievement for sure, but it makes zero difference as people still eat ice creams, toasted teacakes, their eyes are blankly vision free, I guess in heaven I will feel no sorrow? First night in Whitby, slept peacefully until I was awoken by projectile vomiting followed by piss water from my rear orifice. Had two normal beers (Whitby Brewery Saltwick Nab) at the Dolphin, entertaining a couple from Netherlands and Derbyshire with talk of Frikandel , crossed over the swing bridge with a thought I might go to the Coop next to the station for evening grits. But like the unthinking fool I sometimes am the Whitby kebab/pizza takeaway (Porto Pizza) was calling me - good protein for a long walk I thought. One chic...

No I am not organised And my goals are hardly ever reached I am too easily distracted. How did I complete an BA at all? None of the MAs have ever got off the ground. There was no appetite in me for the several I attempted. The first time I was surprised by the quality in the consistency of my writing, and the A grade I was awarded by Mr Jarvis, was an essay I had written about some long forgotten question on Chaucer's Nuns Priests Tale - I even mimicked Paul Scott's hand writing style; but it didn't last I returned to my restless scribble. The second time was the 1st I got for an essay on the origins of the First World War in the first year of Uni. The third time was when I was awarded a 1st for an essay on Sketches by Boz. Most of the other times I hardly understood the question, text and never mind the criticism. Oh, yeah, the result of lower 6th English Lit. exam (TS Eliot, Much ado about nothing and Hard Times or Dombey and Son?) was an A too. But I am...

Seems I keep on stalling. I really can't have the two worlds I have created and I must really give up ownership of the one that has no future. The other plan is the way out of this mess. There is nothing wrong with walking the other way. It will bring me personal human success. Those who call others sinners are mindless fools, but why should it mean anything to me? I challenged some "god squad" preachers yesterday. I said what gives you the right to speak down to "sinners" and if you want to teach people that there is another way you need to be humble, come down to their level - and don't assume that the everyone is a "sinner" just because they think they are not you. Such a fierce horror stalks the streets of Leeds, I have become afraid of that city. This was Albion Place. Whether there is God or not has nothing to do with these dizzily crazy people. Talk about intolerance ... They wouldn't know the Christ at all if it appeared to them ......

War is a racket. That is why. Money money money. Delusions. Why do banks need piles of dollars, gold and piles of bones. War is a racket. Four minute men. Patriotic CPI - pessimistic Wilson another fiend. Capitalism isn't Democracy. Capitalism and Democracy are idolatry. If you don't accept them they ignore, deny, hound, threaten, repress you unless they annulate . The world needs ripping up, but I am not sure it needs to begin again. What is their cause? The 1st of June and there is a hurricane descending. "In God We Trust" - this is an utter lie (unless God is Gold, Hearts and Minds). The reformers become the informers, become the propagandists and deny any other truth. This is the unreality I've been seeing.