A rebel without a clue.

While I am blowing bubbles out my nose, I need to blow (into the ether goes this slime as I shake it into the wind) it's Friday! No forgetting today! That'd be insane! That was a tough stretch from Pamier. Intense at first up to Saint Victor. Just up into the hills. A halt then up on a forestry road to the top before a huge descent into Montégut Plantaurel. The couple looking out for pilgrims are on holiday - fuck. I'm taken in by a "wine" maker who I think makes herb wines, etc. They've had to nip out and I need to rest! Rest I did until mosquitoes came to rest on me like U2 spy planes. The acceuil pèlerin across the street is open, but vacant. Where am I to stay away from the evil bastards who operate over enemy territory during the day! If they are away does it mean I'll have hang about in this "Breuvages de Pyréne" Cave where I think the kids have been left to devastate the habitation while their parents are away? Bloody tiger mosquitoes: a...

Fresh underwear is a revelation, but the time had surely come? A decent night's sleep with some intense dreaming. Feature length dreams fueled by the cheese course at each French meal. Last night's acceuil du pèlerin was a disused railway station. For the remoteness of place it was massive. Look at the Pyrenees to the south: mighty, yet serene. Unhurried they are still moving pushing up the land behind: a force in nature beyond our wildest misunderstanding. Now I head due west on the disused railway line in Pamier for around nine? Tragedy has befallen me! The ever reliable fork, knife and spoon set I was presented with in HMP Wealston are now two or three days behind me. Now I've no cutlery to eat this tin of lentils I've been carrying since then! Oh the humanity.

Laundry done. No more body odour driving folks away: as though I meet anyone while I am pouring with sweat! The main reason I walk is for the solitude which brings back to me a feeling of gentleness and warmth. Dwelling on the past or worrying about what's next vanish for a few moments and I don't know what the problem is. Occasionally I reach a plateau of calm and all tension dissipates, being in the moment is something satisfying but very hard to convey. This is perhaps because any words used to describe it aren't it. The times I meditate at home or at my mum's are the same. For a few minutes, perhaps a couple of hours, nothing is distressing me. The voice of doubt is silent. On a couple of occasions I've forgotten everything; however this becomes a little startling and panic settles in quickly. Only once did I reject the panic and let anything vanish; it seemed that this was the end of it all, yet something dragged me back. Repase smells wonderful and last nigh...

At 15 kilometres it's a little longer to Vals, along the minor routes either side of the main road to Pamiers, and quite boring, but not those hills. Tomorrow it's quite a different story with no option to miss out fairly steep hills. I'm not a coward I just have limits to my energy with this sack! Thierry has connections with the French foreign legion because he was a soldier in the Alpine division and they had an "exchange" programme. He stopped for a beer and I've stopped for lunch. That was a very tough morning and my boots are still wet! Did I mention it was a bit damp yesterday? On the eighth day Daniel wondered how Leeds Mind help publicize my erstwhile endeavour? Do they? Can they? Why aren't they? I'm not sure I can answer that one, but it feels I am trying to help without help! Except for the obvious help from mosquitoes? It's one o'clock so why move? It's shady and I couldn't care less for mosquitoes in the daytime. I disl...

Is there a shorter route today rather that 36 kilometres over three 500 metre hills?Not constantly on tarmac, not on the main roads and pleasant enough. Most of "modern" interpretations the Way of Saint James visit every church, chapel and cross on the road side which means that the route can often go backwards a while before the destination is back ahead of you! Today it does that too - definitely after Vals. It's a bit later start for me this morning and the shorter means of arriving in Pamier is calling me: voie verte : an old railway route. No hills, not backwards to go forwards: Saint Jean Pied-de-Port is far away enough! So I'm late? Well I've bread, cheese, olives and tomatoes. As it passes nine, and I'm behind my usual departure time (I don't like walking after midday!) I will use the disused railway track. My belly is distended with Andouillette : bizarre but pleasant French only style sausage which even includes the oink I'm sure! A coffee ...

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 ...