Bloody Peasants!

It's quiet here. I'm awake but a bit sore behind my head from the migraine. Was tempted to roll over and stay in bed a while longer. It's a shorter "étape" today - only 13 kilometres to the Monastery town Fanjeaux. I'm yawning, and most of me wants back to bed, but it's a momentary lapse

Coffee brewed. I'm telling myself to slow down this morning because there is no hurry. Nothing matters; just be peaceful. On a distant road a horn is honked. Carcassonne probably did things to me mentally for which I was unqualified to deal with. It's a UNESCO world heritage site and that means hordes of zombies trudging from one ice cream parlour to another with a somnambulist's gate. It interferes with my sanity. I have to cling to the edges, find other routes or run away. It was a cliché town. It's a citadel, fortress, nice things rarely happened in them places. Kings and Queens looked down on hopeless "paysans" and cried "mine, it's all mine", but it's painted as a golden lost age: those crenellated stone edifices, where "gentle" knights did woo in earnest and didn't rape brutally, stand as a reminder of much darker, less freer times. When even what was worn was restricted to the level the feudal system put you in; and there was very little scope to escape being slowly starved, over used and probably killed to further some whim. Who built the walls? Who moved the stone? Who broke their backs so the lord could flounce about in ermine? Bastards ... How much has really changed with peasants mortgaged for life to their overlords.

The coffee someone left here is intensity one on the Richter scale, but it's actually quite nice. Very smooth - doux. The shutters open around the square and paysans throw last night's soil onto the morning air with a definite plop. The colligate church chimes seven. I'm in no rush this morning, but the bells are telling me different.