A rebel without a clue.

Pilgrimage Pt.9. No snow is good. A minor sprinkling to the north; from my window I cannot see the direction of travel. Awoke at day break more or less and feeling a little more smelly. The wicking base level does the job required but over a few days I'll smell more rank. The mushroom sauce was simply cream, garlic, salt, pepper and the meat glacie with these midget mushrooms was a great complement to a satisfying steak. I had planned, it being Friday, to look for females in Sauges, but then I realised I need all my energy for the long distance to cover today. No way as dramatic as Friday, but still a steady climb of 300 metres over 30 kilometres; Samedi. I retired around 9pm without a beer. I wrote to Glenn and Nick and sent a few text mothers way. By 10pm everyone doing le Chemin was snoring gently. The light crept though my eyelids by 5am. I turned a few times drifting in and out of sleep, but now at 6:50am I am abluted, packed and ready for petit dejourner at 7:15am. The str...

Pilgrimage Pt.8. Needing to stamp my Créanciale with the fussy old lady I leave at five to find café noir and log on to the matrix. She is very helpful, via a French couple translation, I must fill in my information on my Créanciale prior to leaving France. I had no time to even read what was within the companion piece or the Créanciale itself. I'm wake at 6am and after packing, breakfast and ablutions it is already 8am when I set off for l'eau, compote de pommes and banane and the Chemin St Jacques. That was my third stamp. I leave her with the dignity of kiss on each cheek and to discover a café to engage with those back in England. A discussion with my room mates for tonight explains that Aubrac is famous for its beef in France. I can understand that once you see the miles and miles of rolling grasses with hardly a house in sight; Sauges has a population of 2,000 only. So I am happy to discover that the café I drink and communicate from is, from 7pm, ...

Pilgrimage Pt.7. On the journey I have only seen one ghost. The wife of Charles proprietor of L'Acrobate, Corinne is the only one who is still breathing alive but is dead behind her eyes. There may be was a semi-ghost back in Montbonnet but it was unclear as I drank my Verbena tea. A simple bed and breakfast for €17 in Privat. On reaching the top of the Aubrac plateau coming into Sauges I am surrounded by cows swaying and ruminating to the chimes of antique alpine bells; in distinct brown and white they provide le fromage du Pays from the tender unpolluted dales. For the first time in my life I have climbed beyond 1000 metres. From leaving Monstrial d'Allier I climbed beyond 600 metres rapidly; in the fridgid hale and bleak swirling winds. Twice I reached the tipping point of water and mud. Both feet! But over a crest I hear school children as Sauges is before me. I descended from on high to the center ville of Sauges my body begins to react to the constant tread of size e...

Pilgrimage Pt.6. New experience of chitterling sausage and gratin dauphonoise Saint-Privat d'Allier. It was zero degrees here last night. I felt it. The room was snug but only just. Le toilette froid. Patric snores too. Will take today steady. The small blister on my left foot, third toe, has reduced. But I expect to know about it tonight. Hey that's what our shod feet are made for! Blisters! This morning, as I rolled my sleeping bag, I questioned the German I am sharing with if my current French diet is a bad thing: for the walk he states the body requires fats. Maybe he is right. Fat is bad for a sedentary life watching Jeremy Kyle. Breakfasted on pain, fromage bobi, confiture buerre doux Brest, orange presse au café noir while Charles, my Saint Etienne supporting host, plays an oldie but goodie: Age of Empires; expansion while I take in my second café noir. Ouvert. The clouds drap across the top of most of the mountains we must assault this morning and there is also a 60...

Pilgrimage Pt.5. Bonjour I've just walked 15 km in 3 hrs carrying a 15kilo rucksack. One last hill until Montbonnet. No one has overtaken me but I have passed dozens. My dog taught me well. Arrogance? I left Les Capucin this morning around eight and began the steep and steady route Saint Jacques as it rises straight behind Le Pu(y) to the south west. I was huffing and puffing with that first exertion beyond compote and café. I was able to stop and look back at the cathedral and statue this morning without having walked to death yesterday beyond a couple of significantly inexpensive tourist attractions: four euro. It is a great vista to view the terracotta tiled roofs and the bell tower rising towards the nineteenth centuries crowning glory in this town. By now I am sweating happily into my stride. The tempo of my exerting is soon over as I hit the smooth rhythm that always defines my stamina, once the initial assault is complete. We pass a number of quite facinating natural monu...

Pilgrimage Pt 4. Just got up. Packed. Ready for breaking my fast. I had a glass of gros Manseng wine last night. Some local cheese and two beers from local brewer. Slept from around 10 until 6(5 in UK). Now I am awaiting my morning coffee from a mademoiselle. The wonderful smells of freshly baking croissants and thick lucous French coffee. Paradise is here in combustables. Buerre a la Brest au Breton. Starting this breakfast to gentle voices French. Offer me coffee in which a spoon stand up and I know I am a francophile. But they are another form of madden head shake: les femmes. It is a holiday weekend. The same one I flew from in Brittany in 2000. Back in France without the other mechanical fears. My tears fall for joy and kava. The marching of prisoners, aka pensioners, who now fear death without redemption. Off they stride passing my temporary window. Sitting on the left side of the Chemin I can consume unto equilibrium. I am in need of l'eau et au banane for my journey. T...

Have been forced to pay a little too much for an open and light weight sandle built with walking in mind. Probably less than the uk. My feet will now survive the evenings with a chance to freshen up. Looking for some lighter sock, which I was unsuccessful finding, I found a string of three very interesting shops. First a bric-a-brac with reflections of the Chemin Saint Jacques amongst some novels and a surprisingly sexy selection of early 1970s chanson. Then a fromagerie with at least two fromage de la Pays. Very local. Very lovely. Like a cave aged Lancashire or Wensleydale. Finally when I had little chance to find the sexy sox shop I stopped via the couvert marche and was assaulted with a fantastic wine merchants offering local produce too; including this local biere. Auvergne produces Whisky using Armanac casks too. An interestingly northern British town curiously between Paris and London. Just bumped into Thomas who has been walking and sight seeing all day. I am still feeling the...