A day in the Lourdes.

Lourdes reminds me of Blackpool. Hotels on every street leading into the spiders web where at the very centre sits an untruth so unworthy of trust or respect: an Enigma. Wrapped up in a silk and brocade fabric comes a villain so disdainful and makes Dracula, himself, shudder at the throat. Except in Blackpool I suppose you know you're being taken for a ride?

But I'm here. Hitching here was the only way. I've the tiredness of the eyes where squinting at the clouded skies draws a thousand dry tears to desicated ducts. Coffee next!

What would I want here? Very simple beer. Karmeliet does it every time. Bizarre town. Full of all-sorts. I'm going to sit here and clean my boots next to another cleaning her lungs.

One of the easiest ways to get about in France is by Hitching (auto stop) what probably would've taken several hours to travel to Lourdes took an hour. Three different people and I arrived. Now I am in a seedy two bit hotel (€18) and I reckon prostitution is rife in Lourdes!

Just eaten the most average Magret de Canard I've ever had in France. I had expectations of the confit de canard I ate while in Cahors(2013), but you can't live on hope! It filled me and I will retire in the dusty room for the afternoon. Dense gray/grey clouds come to Lourdes and they can tell my mood is balls! The marché halle is closed. Must hide from the threatening clouds.

Most of the time I walked I was afraid of coming here. It's the same anti-anti-climax I felt in Santiago de Compostelle. It's not real you know. The sun shining on me between those gray/gris/grey clouds is real. I could not imagine the sun. Light is the one truth I depend on. Only light cancels darkness. Stones don't do it. In such a dark space the stain glass "illuminates" nothing. A church is very similar to a prison because you have to conform. If you look from afar on Armley Prison it's identical to the monestaries I've passed for years. The only difference is the focus! In there a prison guard, keys, locks and rules prevent exit and in houses of the holy locks, keys, rule and priests prevent entrance.

This is the kind of place I usually get incandescent, even when I'm on the other side of the great divide, because I really would like to see what it is the other ones have seen. To accept, without question, what has been set out, without contradicting everything rational. The fly which has just alighted on my hand is without question and the occasional rain the wind blows my way is rational. Existential or essential questions always arise in me in a place similar to Lourdes and they really did in Santiago where I queued up three times for my personal Compostelle and each time wanted to strangle myself! But eventually I queued up in a line, up the stairwell and to the front. Presented my credential and there you have me: cleansed of sin or had a fraction discounted.

During these weeks I've got worked up twice. Capestang and Carcassonne did me! That was a while ago, Ego and the other world was still fixed in me. But since Carcassonne I've not felt hypocritical in my efforts.A pilgrimage is focused on shrines though, and here in Lourdes I'm not the only one who must feel totally out of their depth with this homage?

The body odour of my father did leave me eventually ... Now I introduce bathos. It had to be! Here I sit without sanity nursing Karmeliet because it is predictable and the taste always takes me to Arras - a town I am more find of than is rational.

One day I will have to return to Blackpool, if only to get stoned, and quoth I "Jesus, this is just like Lourdes!".