the final stages and doubts appear!

Locals are up clipping back the vines ready for the next vintage - which shows such dedication considering the amount of labour required to cleanly prune every bushvine?

***

Yesterday was a day of lots of vines and little else to occupy the distance to the first "Gîtes d'étape" style accommodation I have seen on the way! It's is known as Casas Rurales and there is another place similar coming along.

Today is the first day of a lot of rain. No prevarication today with the fact I must set off in all the waterproofs I brought: even if this means wearing gators too. It's not hot so wearing the trousers isn't the pain in the neck I find when it's warm and humid!

Time for breakfast as the TV suggests, untruthfully, the world is going up in flames. 24 hour news is just there to fill the populace with fear.

***

After all these years of walking I still don't really know what it is I go hoping to find? There are occasions where all depression and anxiety vanishes - like just now as a flock of birds all launched from a field to my right simultaneously as I passed by and I saw something to wonder about: how they coordinate so finely within such a small space? Although there are thousands of bodies their actions seem to represent a larger structure: a body with many interconnected parts.

Am I still seeking for an end to the perpetual loneliness I feel in this ludicrous world of separateness? It's impossible. Or maybe it's just being overwhelmed by humidity outside and inside - I can't cope wearing waterproof trousers at all! On with short shorts and if it rains only my legs get wet!