A rebel without a clue.

To make my morning smoother I've bought various comestibles for the morning. Natural yogurt. Which in a pack of 4 will be two down this evening. A half a dozen free range eggs of which some will be for breakfast and the remainder for the walk into Charité-sur-Loire, where I am sure I spotted there is another Gîtes, but not on the isle in the Loire, @ €10. None of the people I left Vézelay with yesterday morning have shown up this evening. And there is only one other Gîtes a little further along from Châteauneuf Val-de-Bargis, before it's some distance to the Loire crossing, so they might've gone there or they're still on their way to this articulated lorry crossroad awfulness. It's too busy at 17:40... No wonder there are properties for sale around €70k... Too busy: move the damn route nationale. Back to the Gîtes to finish off what I left after lunch. Now off to bed. Worn out really. Too much yesterday for a sensible person and where are the other pelerins?

What is the Telos - the end goal/the purpose towards which I put one foot in front of the other second after second, minute after minute, ad finitum? At another crossroads with 2.5 kilometres to Champlemy I can't find a goal or an end point in my thoughts. So is the Camino pointless really? On the positive side I note I never feel lonely alone. As I walked through a forest, and as the first deer ked dropped on me and I hastily wiped it off my precious body. I realised for quite a few persons a huge woodland, like the ones I often walk through in France, a scream of fear would be on their lips quite soon into the feeling of remoteness it's possible to feel? The remoteness is an illusion, because all forests in France are 'managed', but the scale of the repeatedness of the trees in all directions, except straight ahead, is potentially very threatening: what's in there lingering to pounce or drop, as the deer ked just did, to attack my precious body? *** After a brief ...

A fairly satisfying night's sleep once next door switched off the TV which went on @ 6am, but I was already awake. I think I saw the occupant on my way to bed as she took out Fifi - a yappy Yorkshire Terrier - I guess she must be very lonely trapped in that Chambre permanently?  Varzy is a mainroad passing through it town, so from around 5 I was aware of the comings and goings of articulated lorries. Last night's repase was good, including a compote de pomme which I had forgotten can be so nice, but a little more than I had budgeted for at €40 for 4 demi Weiss beer, one saucisse de Toulouse assiette, a demi pichon of vin blanc and the dessert. So frugality is the way today: must locate a Gîtes d'Etape/Accueil Pelerin and not walk 7 hours without a break. I think I made an error just following the Voie de Vézelay when some of the places to sleep are along the GR654 which meanders around it...

Beginning of day one (five) from Vézelay: seeing people is a revelation. Being in a accueil pelerin with several dormitories is unreal: very nice. 100% better for a great night's sleep and I managed to complete East of Eden  before I turned in. My backpack is lighter. Fresh clothes: the last pair of grundies before I will be required to hand wash... Briefly regarded the Miam Miam Dodo and there are two sleeping positions up ahead. Fantastic homenade confiture! Who knew you could make it with courgettes! That's a thought? All those courgettes being forgetten... Courgette, lemon, ginger, mint... Wonderful: but more like a chutney so would go wonderfully well with meats? Like a less vinegary chutney... Ready for the offski on day one of nine. Where will this path take me? Having no repase last night was a brave decision: I am not starving and mostly the habit of overconsumption before bed keeps me awake. What with a weak bladder too... *** A very tiring day. By 2pm, without a plac...

Hanging around Gare de Paris Bercy for the train to Vézelay. I will be thankful once I am leaving Paris. I've had my fill. Just now I ate scrambled egg with coffee and fresh orange to try to equalise my unfeeling this morning. Last night I returned to speak some more to the Mexican couple who live in Texas, but they had left: I should've as the deeper I got into Montmartre and it's tourist trappings the more money it appeared to bleed from me. My daily allowance from today is hovering around £50 which I couldn't do if I wasn't on a recognised Chemin Saint Jacques: voie de Vézelay is the closest to Paris - a short 2.5 hours on a regional train. People gather for the preceding train towards Lyon. People watching here. Nowt else to do really. I could use the bathroom, but I haven't any change: why they charge in French train stations is beyond me... On the train I used the toilet prior to departure and got a final 'seat' before the train departed full to th...

Coming out of the Forest between Écouen, the Château, Bois d'Écouen and Chemin d'Enghien and am back in Paris... 9 kilometres from Saint Denis? *** Only €30 to stay in Maison D'Accueil Ephrem, again, but to hang around for 5 hours in touristic hell is/was incredible... People talking hurriedly in English around a communal table, because they hoped to draw me into a portraiture: some drugged up caricature... No thank you.  *** Sunday morning and I made it through Montmartre on a Saturday afternoon/early evening waiting for the Maison to open to receive me at 8:15pm. Such a long time in the most tedious, unreal representation of Paris you could wish for. But now I don't know where to go. I don't wish to go along the same route I traced in March, and there is an option going south out of Paris via Massy towards Orleans: a possibility, but can I walk to it from here: again, followed by another 17kms to Longpont-sur-Orge... I thought of catch a train to Massy and continu...

Here I am opposite the eglise below the château and the jet planes landing and disappearing from Charles de Gaulle twenty miles away. At lunch I had a fantastic Portuguese formulae du jour then walked into a downpour along the cobbled part betwixt Le Mesnil-Aubry and Écouen. Randomly, a gentleman who speaks near perfect English, Oliver, and his wife Alice Mikal Craven(a professor at a university in Paris), took me in for the night. I briefly looked in on the Mairie, but it was so busy, then I went to the Office de Tourisme, but it was closed (when it was meant to be open), so in desperation I went for a semi secluded piss. As I turned around and was heading towards the eglise, just across the road, I hollered (or was hollered after by a gentleman?) coming towards me. I asked him where I could find the Presbytère, which he didn't know, but instantly he invited me back to his abode, after first consulting his partner. Now I am composing myself next to the Hotel de Ville with a few ch...