The afternoon in Fanjeaux.

I'm craving food, but I really can't afford it. It's desperate. Yesterday I could do it all myself, for €12.50 to sleep, today not a chance. The convent in which I am staying won't provide me any food until seven thirty this evening, and I've just burnt 1500 calories before ten thirty! If I start devouring someone's leg, arm or head that's it I am done for ... I carried some items from last night, but I thought, incorrectly, the sœurs would provide me a little luncheon. However the lunch(€15 three courses, wine and coffee) I've just had was absolutely stunning: no wonder the place is very busy (fit to bust). It did the best Crème Brûlée I've ever tasted in France down the years! It maybe was my desperation which spake thus, but it was a different class. It's only necessary to make one thing brilliantly rather than so many things badly! Now I'm so lethargic, but I'm happy to watch this fast world go by as a blur.on this busy main road between Carcassonne and Mirepoix.

The green neon sign on the pharmacy blinks 27°C at 1300. It's too much really and I'm heading back up that massive hill to siesta, alone, in a cool wooden space away from any other temptations and in perfect peace!

But there never is any peace when a persistent mosquito is in the room with me. Trying to accept it's nature and allow it just to do what it is programmed to do is very hard indeed. It's the noise it makes next to my ears, which startled me awake - and just as I was drifting off with a full belly! My thoughts are between heading out again or just relaxing the remainder of the afternoon again ...

Tomorrow is thankfully a Donativo and that's the first one since Béziers. The mosquito got me so I left her to lay her eggs in peace. It makes me wonder where she finds stagnant water on a day like to day? Everything hangs limp and dry, the rain evaporated before it had any time to settle. Some trees are turning off their photosynthetic powers for another year, while others are still deepest green.

Ever persistent are these "tiger" mosquitoes. They bite day round and they primarily bite me. If I'd been carrying on today, rather than having the shortest "étape" so far, I'd have had to deal with less bites (yet), but would've struggled the 25kms to Mirepoix in 32°C. Cloud cover finally. These creatures are so minute but they're devastating and have wiped out more people than any plague, famine or war.