Abbeville to Amiens.

Heading out of Abbeville along the towpath(halage), passing beneath a disused girder box bridge, on the canalised Somme, to my left, it's silent except for the crunching march of my sandaled feet, the morning calls of the birds, a distant cockerel, a train passing into Abbeville on my right hand side and a gentle rain falls: it's green. In the distance to my right hills: so south of Amiens. To my left dense woodland.

From the insanity of Tuesday to the annoyance of Thursday: horseflies biting me at every opportunity. And mosquitoes adding to the desperation.

Hustling down the GR800 from Long, via L'Etoile to Flixecourt and an American Diner (French Diner) with the full playlist of RCA Elvis 56 playing out and with a tear in my eye I eat a Betty Burger, fries and sauce American. Such a strange serendipity. Thinking of a night in with my girl soon with my sister being away from Saturday and I am dog/house/fish sitting until she returns and then I turn my attention to Archie. A German Vizsla.

Flixecourt is famous for its large Jute factory, which made two brothers very rich and was a model village in which to work.

***

Yesterday, as I reached Picquigny, and was without feeling - drained quite probably from Tuesday's maniacalities and Wednesday's banalities - the morning I semi enjoyed the Somme, but the towpath was bland and unvarying - it must've been awfully dull for the draught horses too - and once I reached Long and stopped for a thé vert around noon, and left behind the Towpath for the GR800, I put myself many miles away from t

La Somme, I could've followed all the way into Amiens, but I walked up a dusty path away, up and over - towards Flixecourt (where I ate from an American 50s themed Diner)

Afterway, which eagerness, I shot straight up to the ridge between the stream and La Somme.

At the last bend before the road left for Amiens I briefly stood for auto-stop, but, without anything like the enthusiasm I had a couple of days earlier on the edge of Saint-Valery sur Somme, in ten minutes I was batting off wasps on the platform as I waited for the retard 1731 to Amiens.

Like the train, as I arrived in Amiens Gare Saint Roch, I was mentally retarded and another 40 kilometres had undone me!