Roumengoux

Even here in France big beards are the thing! But the grooming which goes into it really undermines that whole Wild West/Ned Kelly outlaw type look, doesn't it? They're paying a mint to appear to be roguish! Yet I'm sweating my arse off, for hours on end, in the same clothes everyday, sleeping wherever I can and I feel I am a veritable tramp: throw me a box car and I'll stink right in. And this "dude" (dud) is delivering fresh laundry: he's got a trolley, a perpendicular beard several feet long and all that tattoo stuff too!

Now the true France reveals itself. With a wild garden backing onto a steam, and the way the fields rise in that childlike fashion. The lady of the house has four cats, all with insanely long, double barreled names, and two ewes who are quite demanding of me. They wish to come into the garden. After asking the host, quite excitedly, because I just couldn't wait, they bound into her garden and lap it up! Quite some distance from Mirepoix, but so much closer to my experience back in March/April(Geneva to Le Puy), and in the morning it's back to the Cathedral to continue this pleasurable Camino towards another family and no more Tourist Information sending me to the Chambre d'hôtes for a deflowering, where sodomy has never felt so costly or so roughly delivered - oh my derrière!