Day one from Beauvais.

End of the day. The final section, without tree cover, was hard going. A farmer in  Énencourt-Léage gave me a lift in his electric buggy - a golf buggy for working the Noix trees behind the Ferme - back to the farm, took me to the office,  in an old dovecote, where he gave me water, then brought me to Chez Robins - but they're full. Now I am in a Chambre d'Hotes, but she has retired and only accepts cash for the room. I think she's going to run me to Gisors to get money... But I could probably hitch there and back.

Running low on energy I ate all the nuts I had since the UK - one of the only items to escape the wrath of airport logistics.

Now I am heading for a shower and repose. It was a lot of nuts and I feel gassy.

The gentleman of the house runs me around, but I struggle to make myself understood. It's another area of France: Vexin, but am now cradling a Rebelle Pale Ale in Villiers-sur-Trie and will walk to find a pizzeria later.

The wasps are active and I got nibbled this morning walking through the large 'Bois', but, thankfully, it's not those Asiatic Tiger Mosquitoes!

A hasty walk 3 kilometress from the Bois to the Château for a Paysanne Pizza(lardon, onion and crème fraîche) and another 1 to speak to a refugee and her possessions, including a mangy old dog and a one eyes pussycat. The breeze is stiring through the Gîtes (€50) where I have prepared a flask of coffee to go with me to find breakfast along the way on day two out from Beauvais.

Passing through the borderlands (another Ukraine), between the Angevin and the Capetian monarchy's rivalries in the early middle ages, and i will be leaving Picardie for L'Eure tomorrow and an area I passed southwards in 2014.

The pizza was filling and the evening sunshine is definitely an improvement on the afternoon intensity: that breeze is lush!