Day Twelve

Depression is bizarre. Just like that I feel overwhelmed. The world I am walking through is so supreme. It's a rare sight to see early on a Monday morning, but something paralyzes me. The thing I feel haunting my steps and putting me back once more. Today I must focus away from the repetition of the hoodwinking mood! Let it drift away. There are dark clouds to the north and they are enhancing my feelings!

Now the destination is reached it seems much too short a journey: I arrived just around noon. There are towns further up the pass, however there are no Halte Saint-Jacques. But maybe that's for the best? I see there is a Chambre d'hôtes up that long road at €40. Some days it's Donativo and other days you get something better? My budget is around right for today, but I don't think stopping here at noon is quite enough. Perhaps I'm addicted, or it's a habit, to carry on until the later parts of the afternoon? It'll be up, but this is piémont du Pyrénées and there will always be one pass to cross, at least? It's a good idea to eat here then continue on because I think I've spent enough time with the close knit French couple: they're heading to Lourdes and I guess one of them isn't too well? Yesterday I felt a sadness from them. They've been upbeat for the whole time I've seen them. Maybe it's just getting a bit difficult for them? I know I'm struggling to get my body and head into that exceptional state because it's quite difficult this part of The Way and I imagine when you reach the peak of the trail it's a wonder to behold, and Lourdes is down there waiting to save someone?

Without any expectations I descended off the main road, where I was dodging cars regularly, into Augirein where I asked one lady and now I'm in an unexpected Halte Saint-Jacques, all on my own! Just in time too as I was flagging at thirty kilometres! This Halte doubles as a repository for the early twentieth century and it's a folk museum. Strange to stay in a room totally pre war and to use equipment from the sixties to cook with, but it does the same thing really. The fridge - A Brandt - isn't going to be AA rated but it's lasted forty or fifty years! That's the problem with the modern world: always replacing stuff which already works and not considering the planets resources which are thrown into ever increasing piles of waste. The old saying "make do and mend" is well gone, and I'm such a monkey for having piles of electronics in a bag all perfectly usable and doing nothing with them, but the fridge freezer I have in the flat was dragged in from outside my block of flats and it works fine!

Up to 1200 metres tomorrow, but by carrying on after lunch I've shaved twenty kilometres off what would've been nearly 40 and very testing! Tonight no beer, no French couple, totally silent and I've even made something more British for breakfast: even if it'll be cold! I can do cold beans, etc!