Eighteen.

Day five begins with silence and then the happy chatter of birds. I'm awake by five, but coasted back into semi-sleep. Einkorn for breakfast and fruit to follow. It's a difficult day to come. Rural France is so peaceful; it always feels like a miracle to be here walking surrounded by its manners and charms.

Vive la France, Vive la Revolution. Is Europe in meltdown?. Has the European experiment failed? Macron is winning no friends as he taxes the rural French, which is a lot of folks, to please whom? His paymasters: banks, bureaucrats and Eurocrats. It's the same old story, but I wonder if the upper classes have failed so much the genie has smashed the bottle from which it was being indecently restrained. Vive la Revolution and I'm walking over a ridge soon. Boy the things I do for sanity.