A rebel without a clue.

Even here in France big beards are the thing! But the grooming which goes into it really undermines that whole Wild West/Ned Kelly outlaw type look, doesn't it? They're paying a mint to appear to be roguish! Yet I'm sweating my arse off, for hours on end, in the same clothes everyday, sleeping wherever I can and I feel I am a veritable tramp: throw me a box car and I'll stink right in. And this "dude" (dud) is delivering fresh laundry: he's got a trolley, a perpendicular beard several feet long and all that tattoo stuff too! Now the true France reveals itself. With a wild garden backing onto a steam, and the way the fields rise in that childlike fashion. The lady of the house has four cats, all with insanely long, double barreled names, and two ewes who are quite demanding of me. They wish to come into the garden. After asking the host, quite excitedly, because I just couldn't wait, they bound into her garden and lap it up! Quite some distance from Mi...

Of course they brought forth juniper berries, here on this exposed spot, they're juniper bushes: still e xcellent - but minus the gin "boo hiss" I hear a certain voice cry out! Soon I'll be needing to do a laundry of all my underthings, but not yet as I'm sure there are two sides to every gusset? Day seven going into eight I reckon I've at least 12 days of sweating my proverbials off before I smell too much like my old man for my own comfort - I am even smelling like a 60 a day man too, which I really don't understand as I've never smoked ciggies. And being caught in a downpour means I am being launderetted for free, without Persil - parsley! And it's done! I'm staying with a family later. Not paying an absent Chambre d'hôtes £25 for a bed and a microwave - that's taking the piss! Am I talking to the wrong people by consulting the Office du Tourisme? I've to wait next to the La Poste, but currently I'm at The House of Consuls ...

Cows and potatoes, sunflowers and moorland: crossing the divide into mud and rain. Vineyards gone and olives vanished too; crooked oaks and rosehips brush my shoulder. Water drips off my nose tip and rivlets run down my sleeve; wait is there a break in the distance? Watch your feet as tractors tracks wallow deep.

I've been heading in the wrong direction for half an hour. Nothing left to do but cross direct to the correct Way! But through freshly ploughed fields in drizzle. Bugger me with a fish fork! All just to give me peace of mind! But somehow I feel exhilaration as I shake mud off the soles of my feet! That's why I re-treated them this morning. Met a fellow pilgrim in the Convent. It's his first and he's come from home, near to Nice. I've wished him Buen Camino as he's going as direct as possible and I'm slogging through muddy fields instead! Good luck Thierry!

I'm craving food, but I really can't afford it. It's desperate. Yesterday I could do it all myself, for €12.50 to sleep, today not a chance. The convent in which I am staying won't provide me any food until seven thirty this evening, and I've just burnt 1500 calories before ten thirty! If I start devouring someone's leg, arm or head that's it I am done for ... I carried some items from last night, but I thought, incorrectly, the sœurs would provide me a little luncheon. However the lunch(€15 three courses, wine and coffee) I've just had was absolutely stunning: no wonder the place is very busy (fit to bust). It did the best Crème Brûlée I've ever tasted in France down the years! It maybe was my desperation which spake thus, but it was a different class. It's only necessary to make one thing brilliantly rather than so many things badly! Now I'm so lethargic, but I'm happy to watch this fast world go by as a blur.on this busy main road betw...

Down off Montréal I've the massive Pyrenees boldly lining the South so I can't go wrong from here towards Saint Jean P-d-P. The autumn equinox has passed and the nights are now longer than the days: officially summer is over, but the air is so pleasant as dew hangs heavily and the shades of green I see reflected are peaceful indeed; a dove calls from the telegraph pole and the agricultural morning also begins. 13 kilometres is a stroll Tomatoes, glorious tomatoes. No one around for miles. There are so many that they won't miss a couple? Gleaning season as I pilfer some walnuts too! Up a very steep and winding path into the Monastery town and now it's time to rest a while in a comfortable bed in a wooden cell, while my sweaty clothes dry out in the beautiful morning.

It's quiet here. I'm awake but a bit sore behind my head from the migraine. Was tempted to roll over and stay in bed a while longer. It's a shorter "étape" today - only 13 kilometres to the Monastery town Fanjeaux. I'm yawning, and most of me wants back to bed, but it's a momentary lapse Coffee brewed. I'm telling myself to slow down this morning because there is no hurry. Nothing matters; just be peaceful. On a distant road a horn is honked. Carcassonne probably did things to me mentally for which I was unqualified to deal with. It's a UNESCO world heritage site and that means hordes of zombies trudging from one ice cream parlour to another with a somnambulist's gate. It interferes with my sanity. I have to cling to the edges, find other routes or run away. It was a cliché town. It's a citadel, fortress, nice things rarely happened in them places. Kings and Queens looked down on hopeless "paysans" and cried "mine, it's ...