A rebel without a clue.

Last night I awoke from another dream: I truly saw the darkness pervading from The Brunswick. My subconscious threw the majority of the Founders KBS 2016 onto their wooden floor and up the wall. As I really didn't know just how truly rotten Nick was, until I was presented with an array of vastly overpriced Belgian beer (obviously gotten suspiciously from a recently closed down beer shop) lined up guiltily in the fridge. It was around half eight and there was no one in the bar apart from the Sycophants who pressed around Nick like he's some Gangsta and this is his meatball diner. Dark ... Never again. Sam has an outer shell encased in tattoos, but somewhere beneath he has a soul. Nick may be a anthropomorphic hell? Or maybe, like Shelob, he prepares to pounce and vent venom and devour the helpless for all eternity? It made my skin crawl, and my disposition was to flee, so my subconscious threw the vile retch to his knees as polished the dark brew off of the wall and skirting boa...

Visit three. North Street Deli for an omelette and peppermint tea. And to try to get Jason along with me for a dog walk this morning: he's off to the Gym. No bother. Will see him later this afternoon. Naga chilli is the death of me. Purge. Dégorge. Dégustation. Old age? What is a dogs purpose? To leave us heart broken? Reeling from emotion. A long walk ahead of us. 3 hours and nine miles: she's a fantastic dog!

Curry dreams and other after effects. The strangest epic nightmare. And now the bodily consequences of a very hot Naga spiced mutton dish. By eck, they definitely like their curried delicacies very hot. The last time I had a curry quite so extreme was from Ali Raj in the 90s. The dream was a saga of getting home, which I finally managed as I woke sweating and desperate to hit the porcelain. Marcel Proust was the only way out of the dream. Bus, café, runaway bus, crashing through a barrier of a building(Victorian Infirmary) into an Egyptian/Sumerian ruin next to a river. Sideways sliding towards the Nile/Euphrates/Ganges/Indes, where it came to rest at the beginning of human recorded history. I was unscaithed but was lost in time having to return to the current over so many hurdles. In the end I'd been interviewed by the "east European" police as a witness to the original runaway bus, put back on the correct path (thinking there were simply too many routes to follow to ev...

It's definitely made me twitchy. Four days without coffee and now I know why it's such a bad idea on an empty stomach. How do I stop? Decaffeinated seems wrong. And a cup of tea isn't the same. Maybe the toast will help? Tattoos. I've never really understood them. Isn't it the same as self mutilation or self harming - by proxy obviously. To show an allegiance to some distinct brotherhood separated and special from the absolute Brotherhood. As an individual I dislike groups because that is another way we are divided. As an individual I feel more of the collective than I would as a special element of the minority. It's a paradox of my nature. Suits are the same, Levi's or Nike. Branded and separated. Yesterday a guy, and his wife, left The Bay Horse to drive away in his Ferrari. Fully chalked up in their own distinct "better" class of separateness. We'd both seen the same Escort MK2 RS2000, but, while I only saw a car I'd not seen since the ...

Saturday morning has almost gone, and I've been on the go since sunrise, so I definitely need the remainder of the day to get cleared of all the fatigue from my recent walk in France, and the long, endurance sapping, journey back, to some semblance of restfulness and clarity. Today I'm up in Kirk Deighton to watch after Emma's dogs while they've headed to Spain. The weather is splendid. The dogs are happy and the nettle tea is on top form. There is nothing better than the first wash of tender tips. I took Charlotte out for a gentle stroll, as she's a little under the weather, and picked a large-ish arm full of the purple heads. The cows have returned to the Glebe, but not so many so far (I wonder if they are coming in stages), the bull is yet to put in an appearance. The field is lush and I know the calves will be getting the best milk direct from grass to teat! So far 2019 is a good year: and it's heating up nicely as they kick off the new cricket season on Mar...

Prophets become a means of profits for the untrue. Prophets are captured and put in reliquaries. Bits of bone and wood, Thorns and nails, Hair and things; they've touched, Contain nothing. Expensive to recoil in fear From Him who only Loves. Lay aside this worry and hear Reality requires emptiness; Clear.

Slightly burnt croissant. Good espresso and filter, but no Tartine and no jam! Bugger. I'm off back to The North via the Palace of Winchester and Clink. Vinopolis is no more. Fled up to the North side. Through Corum's Field and Chancery. Now waiting safely in King's Cross with a bag of goodies courtesy of Fortnum and Mason. ... Time flies and I am waiting for the X99 to see my girl, which has been too long. Leaving Lola is very hard to do. But I know she'll be expecting me this morning. It is back in its box, under the bed and forgotten for a while. It has to be left alone and quiet! It will laid dormant for aeons or until June!

It's full circle: YHA Thameside. A night in peace on my own in room 316 with a romantic view of Canada Water and a gas tower looking south west. What a day was Sunday. London is a great city and I'm certain that Samuel Johnson was quite correct. You know that for six years I had been bored of life, but I had just about hung on, and now I feel I've a gift to share. She was shaking like a leaf in frenzy, blown in gusts, but such a sweet girl: a little girl who knew I could offer only protection. Laid on the floor in the Swedish bakery Fabriqué, Hoxton I did what I could to show her not all men are the monsters she supposes! A Podenco Canario delicate and well mannered, but terrified. The wonderful darling: my heart lingered and was broken. They've stopped doing Tartine at Monmouth Coffee Co.! That old chestnut - too much waste! Is this Hard Times or is this a glowering accountant trimming pence of loss! Bastard's! We deal in more than profit and loss in our world. A...

Collecting Lotus biscuits for desperate times counting the waves and lonely gulls. Lavazza coffee on the dockside in Dieppe around ten. It's all good. Will be in London by 11pm and Thameside YHA by midnight. There are times I miss that place, but never the fire alarms which startled me awake at 2/3am when some git decided to have a shower or smoke a fag. Life goes on. Jean-Claude, Arunas, Raffa and Beverley are ever present. Life has moved on from them times and I wonder what became of all those good folks and the crazy lady who didn't know where she was or where she was going ended up. Andy, Craig, Marcin, Susannah, Nick, Pedro, Karis and so many names I forgot: Boomi, how could I forget Boomi... And Mo! Oh Mo, I know you went where you had to go? A Marché. The French do proper markets. True they still sell garbage, but they sell all the best AOC and AOP fodder you can stuff in a volumious 1980s Karrimor Jaguar. I've to return to there later for rillettes, cider, avocado ...

Dijon to Auxerre to Rouen to Dieppe to walk to monastery Saint Marie is a slow way to face the UK, but it's also extremely tiring. BlaBlaCar is truly useful for getting about, and really makes hanging around hitching less necessary, but it brought me back to another reality I'd clearly forgotten since I'd left Geneva on the 26th March: there are so many vehicles going everywhere carry cargo and people at crazy speeds great distances. Distance which it's taken me days to cover is a blink of the eye: you miss the details in the world by being shuttled too and fro, if you are driving, for the passenger the world recedes much too rapidly to take it in without a bad neck, headache or a feeling of fatigue. Two aspects of yesterday's trip from Auxerre to Dieppe brought me back into the modern world with a bump. Firstly, travelling into the western suburbs of Paris, and collecting another BlaBlaCar passenger at Versailles Gare, the traffic lights, cars bumper to bumper and...

Auxerre. I'm a little exhausted. Ran around trying to find accommodation this morning. After visiting the Mairie and Diocese Office I lastly headed to the Office de tourisme where I was told I could stay with a gentleman from 4:30pm. My body was switching off and my mind was distracted. The combination of wine and lack of sleep is making me feel old today. I've no interest in being here today, but I know this malaise will lift with a few days off the pop and a good night's sleep in my own bed. It's a beautiful town. Coming in was lovely this morning, but I lacked any energy to take it beyond surface detail. Now I wait outside 36 Rue Michelet and I hope my host understands how tired walking a Camino is and how demanding backpacking is as well. Even as a kid I didn't relish long days traipsing about look for a source of complete relaxation. The obvious place to stay - Maison de Randonnér - was full, but the lady of the house allowed me to rest upstairs where I almost ...

Brilliant day. Walked towards Gevrey-Chambertin from Dijon along a yellow marked pathway, until I realised it was simply too far without any refreshments, then hitched to it. First person dropped me at a roundabout second driver took me direct. He had to go to the dump with some building rubbish. Once I opened the door a couple of lovely eyes looked up at me from the fit space: Paco his Labrador companion. At the tip I helped him dump the old pallets and tiles: it was a kind of workout and I threw the rules with a lot of force into the various skips arranged about this cliff surrounded space. When we drove through the route of the Grande Cru be pointed out the space in Bouchon which was his families. Burgundy was a true revelation, but you pay for the stuff... Phillippe LeClerc cave was my destination, after repase and fussing another dog, so I paid for a very very educational degustation and learned that the monks who tended the vines, for centuries before the French Revolution, knew ...

Another morning and another Tartine - Tartin'Art near by Notre Dame. The Halle is closed this morning. Jeudi. It's the way. I'm going to walk the Chemin Saint Jacques towards Gevrey-Chambertin: just for the wine and plat-du-jour. I reek ... Borrowed the hosts parfume to hide a week plus in the same clothes. We always mask our true odour in essence of nature. The fall was not so graceful when ever aspect of the outward reality is a façade to the inner being. It's truly odd to see ourselves in a mirror and be unworthy of our natural self? There is always a gypsy woman loitering outside the main cathedral. Lyon and Dijon. Do they have begging rights. I cannot help feel it's all lies.

Dear John, happy birthday. 86 you'd have been ... What would the world be like now for you with all the problems of the world? They only began to appear on the 11th of September 2001 and you didn't live to see the awful aftermath. What would you make of Mr Trump who is seriously, not even in a pack of Super Trump cards of US presidents - you need a special edition to find his faux visage. Can't the US impeach the president for mental health issues or being quite literally insane? Fake tan, comb over, leggy young blonde on his arm, with more kids than Old Mother Hubbard. Dijon: was I really going to wake up with Florian's willy pointing in my general direction? Did I over react? No, I might have lost €55 but I found another Airbnb and had a solid night's sleep. Going to get a Tartine and then walk to Gevrey-Chambertin. Dijon? Did I just walk free and easy? Yes I did. The pain is gone. It's not in my derrière. It's not in my bones. Put it down to experience....

A different sort of fun when the bus doesn't arrive. Seven people are told it left without you. But either the bus was invisible or its a plain lie. It's the way. I'm now sat in Perrache charging this up. For about an hour or so I talked to a lovely girl called Cindy, so it wasn't wasted. This was my before sunrise moment, except it was only two hours and the sun has yet to set. Now to get to Dijon I only have two options: BlaBlaCar or SNCF. So far I've not been in a railway station in France this time. Today was a wonderful day. Lyon is a cool city and security minded. Does the world need Police Nationale or the army on ever street. It's a cause of panic. It is made up to keep the people in place. It's nothing real. Can I drink wine in a station. I asked the cops and he kindly said it's not the best idea! Missing buses? For €2.99 should I cry? Now I have to pay €32 for a train ... But it's faster. It's all a slow way back to the UK. I will leav...

Smoke gets in my eyes, throat and nose. French femme fatale pulls forever Canker sticks they stay pencil thin. Inside they drip with coal tar Nightmares. Between conversation, Ends, Thrown hastily, Guttering. While another match flares And a sun watches down The rue.

Lyon. Hurdles to find a bed. Not happening with the Accueil Jacquaire, but that was yesterday. So now you'll find me at the end of the bar with La'Chouffe and a veggie burger. And I've a room on the top floor of a rough around the edges Auberge de Jeunesse. I got trapped between the entrance to the North Face of the Cathedral and a huge iron gate topped by a barbed welcome. I screamed and screamed at a man enclosed in his iPod world, but no matter how loud I shouted there was no response. I was trapped between Freedom on Rue St. Etienne and the Grande Eglise with no possible way of escape. Such a strange moment and quite symbolic. I'll never dare enter a church again: they are truly barriers to life.

A great breakfast: from afar I spotted oats!!! Martine is the boss here, her husband rarely looked my direction - probably loathes us English. Actually I am back in the land of the living. Porridge. I've 36kms to go. But it's the final etape ... Last Way this way. I know I'll never stop walking. The path is my destination. Am I happy? I'm sardonic! We had a better time this morning when she didn't need to play up to the crowd. Le Puy en Velay. I'm here. Managed to shave a little off the distance, but probably just 3kms, by following other routes and turning to the IGN app I'd not used yet. The last two hours were relentless, but I managed. Twice I forgot I'd left overs from the evening so I've just polished them off and am sitting in Brasserie Le Palais with a Fischer Doreleï (demi). So many people. I forgot the earth was inhabited by many of us. It's Dimanche and it's closed for business: I may just tuck into a pizza for my meal: have to b...

Sunday. Cockerel crows again because to him it is another morning and he sings before the sun makes its first appearance forever, but it's passed six anyway and there are no dogs howling at the moon. Strange scenes inside the gold mine: it is so long since I've stayed in a Chambre d'hôtes that I was truly surprised by what can only be called inauthenticity. When I went down from the Pelerin Gîte, which is the usual simple affair, the hostess and husband and three other higher ranking guests were arranged about the fireplace drinking aperitif with various fruit flovoured syrup. Once we finally sat down to eat I was very flakey: on the very edge of sleep. So phoney I had trouble at first not to feel in conflict with my being. So different from Accueil Jacquaire in an entirely pretentious manner. Totally unnecessary affectation. Not every meal in France is surely like this? More a means of chin wag not a means of sustenance. No wonder they've all bellies where they could ...

Don't tanneries use urine to nap or cure leather ..  it seems pissing on my size 10.5s is a good thing to do to the material, but the metal does not like this form of abuse. During this sleet I'm going to keep it up and sort out the rust a little later. Like when there isn't gusts, rain and snow flying into my face? Mad weather to remind me where I am: Auvergne, no room at the various Inns(Accueil Jacquaire) for the penultimate night's rest & tomorrow the same. The lady of this Gîte d'Etape is drying my jacket and boots ready for tomorrow. Currently I only have €9 left so I'll have to send her €26 in the morning. My budget is €40 per day and any I have left I've sent straight back to Mum and Glenn. Mum's cleared but I'll still owe Glenn some, however he's OK to wait until the dog sitting weekend. As long as I get to Le Puy tomorrow: a 36kms day I am assured a bed in the same place this bonkers idea of mine began in May 2013. If I make it tomo...

Both of you have Parkinson's disease? Oh the humanity. The body or mind. Which one rules within and without. The body is powerless and the mind is relentlessly all conquering. Another woodpecker and a stiff corpse of a cat, then up into the woods for a last trepidicous climb to the high point on the Via Geb before straight ahead to Le Puy. Eating must surely be a question of trial and error. The minimum error is sustenance and the maximum is death. Mushrooms ... There is not much room for a mistake there? Is knowledge of danger an inheritance in our genes? But if one individual died as a result of ingesting the wrong grub how would the collect organism know this? Is heredity fully aware? I've read certain lichen is very good eating but, even though I'm sure what I see up here is Icelandic moss or something used in beer preparation and mead construction, I dare not try incase the ergot is present and I'm sent tripping onto another plane of existence? A drippy nose, ti...

The dogs have begun barking. Earlier the hounds were howling. You never need an alarm clock in rural France. When I went out to sit with them they all sniffed me again, one licked my hands, but mainly they wanted to keep warm in the sun. A garçon, of about 7, who came passed early yesterday evening, told me the one who didn't move had a problem with its breathing and was sure to die - 'mort' he spake - I continued to stroke it behind the ears a little tearful. He passed this comment with little emotion, although I could see something was working deeper inside. When I asked what the dog was called he said it had no name. Nothing has a name it is always just itself without an appellation - indeed a dog is not a dog really. Sometimes I see dogs as an extension of me, the ones who grasp my baby talk and Yorkshire tongue as never a threat. It is 5:52am on Saturday the sixth of April 2019 and I have more than 30kms ahead of me, to reach Le Puy for Sunday evening, today. Bloody do...

Another pilgrim. I saw him ahead and thought he was the guy who comes from Prague who has walked out of Copenhagen, when I caught him up he's another German Swiss, but not as dark or as glum as the one I saw in Beaumont. It was interesting to walk with someone who could keep up with me. He's sixty six this year and was in the army as part of the Swiss system of national service until he was 42 which means he's also really used to carrying a pack and yomping. Bernard has being paying quite a lot for his quarters on a night but has had the occasional massage to compensate the out lay: I've just got sore shoulders. Today was the main climb of the route: from Bourg-Argental to Coirolles over the border into Auvergne from Rhônes-de-Alpes at around 1300 metres, where snow lied heavy on the track side. It was up all the way until a lumber yard, with trees felled to be taken away at some point, then a down hiccup to be followed by a final up to the Gîte. At the top I stopped f...

That meat feast conjured up a mixed up night's dreaming. I'm going to have to refuse any meat regardless today. I could open a butchers in my arse. Fruit, beans and lentils it must be today. The family here speaks zero English and can't understand much of my French. Most couples I've stayed with fairly get what I am saying, even when I had to resort to sign language to get a coat hanger the night before last. Tonight's etape (stage stop) is sorted out already and I think she can speak a little English. Mainly I hope the family are a little more vigorous and do hearty food which won't bust my arteries! This part of France used to be the heart of a mining area but now all the mines are gone and the metals come from the East. Same story as northern England and Walloonia. Banks care not for people. They are simply filled with greed. They want more and more of everything, but simply do not realise there is nothing that can be bought that will appease the Ego and it...

The first cuckoo of spring and the neighing of a stallion as I do not dally up this pass to repase around one thirty, or I get there just in time? Jeane d'Arc the lass in the restaurant was definitely a dark Jeane in more ways than one. This town is dark. Everything is closed until 3. The one restaurant is open but won't serve me so I'm sat on the crossroads hopeful that articulated lorries don't squish me. Batteries died. It's like they're trying to kill me with meat. Tonight I had a 9 inch sausage and a faggot/ducks egg ... And a quiche Lorraine and with some wine. Maybe I offended the mother of the house because I could eat no more. I've a mountain to climb tomorrow ... But it's only 600 metres further on. And I was trying to stay away from meat today. The bastard's I never stood a chance. Please forgive me...

Two hours gone and time to stop this moment and take a coffee. Make a sandwich, perhaps buy one too? No. Only 18kms to go. Stop around 10kms for repase(lunch), however I've decided to go vegetarian again as of this morning. Once the cheese has finished I'll move onto beans and/or lentils. It's a bit cooler today, and I'm heading upwards continually, which means it is time to don the pink tasselled affair, which is blatantly female, but is warm and obviously visible for miles around (I'm such a whoopsie)! My waterproofs are on, but as yet these are just sweat boxes, with the sun pouring amber from it's globular majesty I go upwards and onwards!

[Verse 1] Jeane The low-life has lost its appeal And I'm tired of walking these streets To a room with its cupboard bare Jeane I'm not sure what happiness means But I look in your eyes And I know that it isn't there [Chorus 1] We tried, we failed We tried and we failed We tried and we failed We tried and we failed We tried [Verse 2] Jeane There's ice on the sink where we bathe So how can you call this a home When you know it's a grave But you still hope for ridding grace As you tidy the place But it will never be clean, Jeane [Chorus 1] We tried, we failed We tried and we failed We tried and we failed We tried and we failed We tried [Verse 3] Cash on the nail It's just a fairy tale And I don't believe in magic anymore, Jeane But I think you know I really think you know I think you know the truth Jeane [Verse 4] No heavenly choir Not for me and not for you Because I think that you know I really think you know I think ...

Years ago I was told of a phenomenon which I thought was literally nonsensical: that water can flow up hill. Yesterday the rain fell so fast and so heavily that this was definitely revealed to me to be true. Under force water always finds the route of least resistance following on from the laws of gravity I suppose. With enough force it could surely pour out in a gush. After all is not a gesser one such forces combined with thermal dynamics??? I've just left the first household in France where bread, cheese, butter, meat and wine were nowhere to be seen. Lillian and her mute husband were pleasant enough, but she whittered like my mother's sister Iris: who was a God fearing Christian and a hard line racist (mum was always an apologist for her too saying "she's harmless really" or "doesn't know what she's saying" while she attacked how fat or thin or badly dressed or overdressed or over intense I was or how the coloureds have ruined Rotherham ... ...

Wednesday was a very difficult day, mostly. After a lovely diner, complicated night's rest and an exceptional breakfast at the large Ferme/Chateau where I had slept - cared for very well by André and Danielle, who both spoke no English and were Octogenarians (meaning they lived through the worst of times and the best of times?), I'd set off with recriminations of the things I'd written about my dad. Although they were the truth, as I saw it a long time ago, and, I think, people cannot read between the lines very well (Facebook is a simple medium, filled with people who have perhaps little real intellect to comprehend I wasn't actually attacking my father but wondering how it was he got the way he did (the final sentence was the lead off to a discussion of his father)), I was definitely feeling I'd said too much this time. Family can have a different out-look on him, but their direct experience is another story really, and one I but rarely witnessed, and doesn'...

Wow. The response from family about my observation of my father has gone down like a lead balloon. Everyone sees my father as a really nice guy. It's a shame of mine that I've always been backed into a corner by the way speak honestly. My mother always was afraid I might say something far too close to the truth to her mother, sisters and family friends? Actually our closest family friends - Jean and Milton - have first hand experience of my father's ruthlessness and his inability to stop holding a grudge and they have never questioned my authenticity. A while after mother and father had separated - a couple of years - when he was living back in Rawmarsh, having returned from Melbourne Australia (and his boomeranging back and forth from 1992 until 1995), and after forcing mother to give him half the value of the property they shared, when he couldn't get back into my mother's life because of the "other" thing which was going through his mind. A thing I ca...

Let me tell you about my father? The guy was a shouter: voice raised so he could fixate on the TV at all times, smoking Golden Virginia all the day long, stirring several sugars into Carnation condensed milk sweetened tea all day long, laughing at innuendo after innuendo all day long, listening to Rod Stewart at his Baby Jane blandest and forgetting to wear underwear constantly so he could sit "au naturale" willy out like some gigolo, telling lies about the possessions he pilfered to make him seem like he had real substance, playing on the one eyed trouser snake like he was waving a wand against my very being and his index finger shoved so far up his nostril he was definitely scratching the very demon inside who had ate him all up. Oh dad the only thing left of yours, which no one recalls you owning, is the Aussie Bushman's hat which hangs so greasy pegged above the bar in the place where you drank and smoked and swore and never once saw your son as anything but a challe...

You want me to go north east to head south west, all for a bloody church! These Amis St Jacques are mad. Take me away from the busy roads, but please go directly to Le Puy not some convoluted bollocks just because there is a Saint, someone or other, named church. It's not an incline I fear, but a vacant building standing desolate, and without any substance at all, just for a pathetic "tampon" in a piece of paper know locally as a Credencial! Today I fart in your general direction you French whoopsies who think by having zillions of saints and churches named after saints takes you a step closer to heaven. Don't you know transubstantiation is literally cannibalism.  Go away and eat your wafer thin wafer you sons of a stupid git!

How many English or surrogate English would pledge allegiance. In 1988 I could not pledge my self to Australia no matter how wonderful it was/is. There is too much English, British, European in me to forfeit that existence. There are many reflections of being human but all are illusions. Nothing outside myself is true in any way. Do I subconsciously seek recognition in my vain scribbling? For years I went to get acceptance from the ways beyond me only to see that no goal can ever be reached outside myself. There is always one more hurdle, one more possession, one more agenda. Losing this pointless, frivolous action is perhaps the only way for me not to cease my life through unnatural causes. In truth I do find writing gives me a way out of the prison my mind has been placed in. All my life I've tried to feel real while being attacked by the grotesquely deafening, tongueless corpse of the blindly insane. Enough is enough. There is a better way. It's simply to be myself and let n...

If it is immigration which is at the heart of the question for the English surely that is the problem which needs addressing, and not membership of the EU? How have mass swathes of Middle Eastern and North African got anything to do with being in the EU. It seems to me the UK suffers from guilt for the Empire and how it categorised most of the pink on the map as "savages" unable to run their own affairs, like a meddling auntie we see ourselves as perfect, flawless, doing everything absolutely positively, but unselfconsciously showing our horrendous bloomers whenever we sit or bend over. My simple answer is to turn the concept of Bigotry on its head: are not foreign nationals who have failed to integrate not bigots - they simply wish to have their cake and eat it too. If the NHS, social services, Benefits are at full stretch the root problem is this sense of guilt which leads to a disproportionate sense of responsibility. We are not responsible for a badly, arrogantly run, Emp...

A graceful hare came out of the woods ahead of me and I only startled it back the way it came because I was discussing Brexit with mum; oh the humanity. Truly I am sorry hare it is your place not mine. Silence is a guide to awareness, these damn phones are a menace, I could've eaten a pie tonight. Here I am again. A shit town. I've to wait until four before my carriage collects me. Can't get a French bière at all. Leffe Ruby(merde) or Wife Beater. Youngsters rolling joints in empty market Halle and all down the stairwell from the chateau on top. Exterminate the brutes or sink this rotten ship. What would be missed? Me moaning I suppose. Stella Artois it is as I've only two options; strictly binary, on or off, black or white, beer or water. On my way down I drank hastily from a font which had no Non Potable sign, but neither did it have a Potable sign, yet the taste is perfect so I've filled my flask and expect Legionnaire's disease any day soon. Add it to the t...

Have the young been removed from the earth they walk upon? Has a pair of headphones, a mobile device and sunglasses hidden the real world in bytes? For me a mobile phone is a modern Swiss army knife with each potential app a means to some goal which my Victorinox ist redundant. Just now I stopped for lunch: avocado, lentils, Langres cheese, pain complete and sheep milk yogurt for which said knife became quite useful. Currently I am back on the route, and I must acknowledge I'm not sure if it's entirely the right way (my head still at that crooked angle), as I'm using this thing for what it is best for: writing, maps and photography, and for keeping in touch with Mutti too (it's easy to forget phones replaced the post before email and Messenger came along). Turning my gaze away from this thing is the best thing when I should watch the stones my feet are treading on.

Bromide, part two, girl goes into Credit Agricole, briefly, and passes me on the street. As always I look her up and down and around, she is very pleasant on the eyes, then once she has passed by I notice a little ladder up to where I should never go and I say "you have a ladder" she replies "I know" so I respond "does it go to heaven" then she smiles and I go on looking for a petit café with a grin as wide as the Rhône on my face (I learnt all I know from Benny Hill and my father's stashed collect of Fiesta, Escort, Reader's Wives and the occasional Rodox - Radox and Rodox were very confusing as an adolescent)!

Woodpecker is knocking at his mate to remind her he is a good bird. The sun stands proudly on the pedestal created by the mountains around Grenoble south east of my route. Cows and horse do perpetually eat grass: it must be like heroin, or they've found the only foodstuff that doesn't runaway, so have accepted it as their lot. Such silly creatures, however I've ripped my shirt leaning over to get a quick lick off a swelling heifer. In a few million years grass will have evolved feet so they can tell the thieves and mowers to fuck off, but then grass eaters and green fingered humans will have invented, developed or evolved wings to say come back here you swines!

Usually I'm at ease for breakfast with Camino hosts, but the last two have made me feel it's all about getting some money, so I've failed to interact properly with them. The last two families were clearly pensioners and the both wanted to guillotine Macron and I can hardly blame them if the situation in France is so bad? The general feeling is that the lower and middle bracket are being squeezed for the top level: is France heavily in debt and are the bankers wanting their money? How do bankers get politician over a barrel continually. Politics must surely be a sham: democracy is a means of keeping us rabble at bay, but it is not us who is rabid. History is said to repeat itself or come in cycles: and the paradigm shift is usually the result of something massive i.e. war, famine, disease, plague ... Global warming. The birth of the internet age is surely where the public, the unseen masses, have more voice? YouTube, Instagram, social media, etc, has give a voice to the unre...