A rebel without a clue.

The promise of dog sitting in Bramham vanished into the ether: Emma's friend Lou asked another person. C'est la vie. And I don't know her dog anyway so I'd have to get to know him soon if I am to dog sit for her ever? One door shuts: now I have Ruby for an additional two days overnight on the 20th a little before I get her during July and August for a couple of weeks. We get on so well and she's super happy to be with me, and Lola gets on well with her too, so it is more ideal; it'll be nice to see her again? Just now I was looking back over the photos I took in June 2015 walking from Arles to Lodéve and recall it was when I was 'learning' about Le Chemin and really didn't know what I was doing down there in Gard and Hérault: the highlight was the Camargue and Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert abs climbing up the escapement/gorge to overlook the whole of the Hérault area: quite beautiful. After I 'quit' the Chemin I returned to the UK walking back from...

Well you never know what is around the corner? Here we are Friday morning and pretty skint for the next quarter and then a week's dog/house sitting comes along. Emma's friend Lou, in Bramham, needs me from the 27th May. Now it looks possible I am going to Montpellier with Glenn after all (as a replacement for Mark, who is, sadly, dead). Glenn wants to rock up during their solstice summer festival: which I've tried to sleep through when walking from Arles in 2015, and perhaps 2013 when I met him there (briefly). There is the route north from Nîmes/Arles to Le-Puy-en-Vellay ... Must start thinking of another pilgrimage just when I may need one as Wales wasn't a pilgrimage with too many glasses of wine! But perhaps a couple of glasses on the Strand south of Montpellier, by the large Etang de Mauguio - Carnon and Carnon-Plage ... About to catch the 7:30am X98, the one littered with chav school kids enroute to Wetherby Sty School and having a coffee and pain aux raisin in Pr...

I am currently reading a Bill Bryson travel journal and, although laughing out loud loads, wondering why he's so 'conventional' in his approach to the places he visits? Staying in nice hotels, doing all the museums and galleries, getting fatter and falling down drunk, forgetting to undress, and struggling to collect himself the following morning? The final part I understand well, but the ordinary way he goes about his vocation: travelling by train, booking into exorbitant hotels, flying across a continent (Sweden to Italy for instance)? The time he spends in Hammerfest is intriguing - just to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights - but what is he really telling me about the 'adventure' he is one? When I originally read his writings years ago I didn't see the obvious way he goes about his journeys where nothing seems at random or leftfield at all. Perhaps it was a different time? As I get older I prefer a comfortable night's sleep, a nice firm mattress, the ...

So a full day back in England and I slept so well at the flat in a freshly made bed. I'd washed the entirety of my bed linen, including the undersheet protector, prior to going down to the Dee Valley. The sun was shining as I got off the number 7 on Vicar Lane and went and bought some 'essentials' for the flat: banal toilet paper and bland toilet cleaner: both whiter than white. And a nice selection of veg to whip up a nice dinner, which was a halloumi based biriyani - but without the sauce. And I had the official letter about a PIP assessment which neither I nor Glenn can make so I will be postponing and hoping the one postponement doesn't clash with the expected cataract surgery? Why is there only one postponement ... Oh well, I will go along with one eye covered and affect a pirate accent - sounding like I am from Bristol - and hobble on the left foot and stumble on my right knee. Oh the joy of getting passed 'it' if I was ever capable of 'it...

Well that was an interesting, if a bit expensive, five nights in and around the Welsh Marches. It cost close to £60 per night, but I prefer beds to tents now so it must be? It was a weekend of discovery and Wales is firmly on my radar now as another option in my long list of potentials between now and the end of the path I weave? Got back around 6 with a bag of sausage, chips, mushy peas and a can of Dandelion & Burdock (Ben Shaw's) £7.30 from The Frying Pan before making a bed and sleeping some 12 hours, again, creeping down to start the 9th of May. Now I drink a second cup of filter coffee by the back patio listening to the cries of the crows and the remains of the dawn chorus, while our humanity steers into the various roads away from the Coronation bank holiday into work and I consider how quickly I can clear the debts accrued over the rest of spring and summer before I set sail for France come September and Mont Saint Michael... This morning I reconnect with Lola for the r...

Walking back the way I came. Yesterday sun, but today drenched. Just over an hour to recross my steps passed the church, horseshoe weir and giant oak along the towpath then went right along the main road with damp boots. If it breaks I may walk to Chirk... that's unlikely though. Time to catch the bus... On a miserable morning I am on the number 5 towards Chester, to change at Wrexham and head to stand 7 @ 10:45am to Caer/ Chester before the long haul on Northern Rails direct service to Leeds. Last meat related morning. Great breakfast and welcoming tea at the café in Riverbanc after leaving the Sun Inn at 6:30. Hung around until 10 reading the first chapter of Bill Bryson's Neither here nor There ... Back into a book. No traipsing uselessly today. Mentally and physically exhausted! 

Blessings. Sunday and asleep by 1800. Walked back passed The Sun Inn @ Rhewl, the back road route from Carrog, and asked if they could accommodate me a night to which the landlord said 'I'll just ask the wife' and low and behold I've a comfortable double mattress on the floor, two giant Pyrenean Mountain dogs and a snack at nine, when I finally awoke from the snooze ... I was tired I apologised for sleeping ate gratefully, paid £30 and waltzed back up to the best bed so far since Wednesday. But the I was led here. I tried Corwen and the Grouse @ Carrog for accommodation, but Corwen was too expensive and rough around the edges and the sister pub to the Grouse was even more expensive and on the A5 where motorbikes were driving me bonkers. So I'd just about decided to go back to Llangollen and catch a bus, starting the long route back to Leeds already or stay again at the Hand Hotel, but I was wary of pigeons waking me up all through the night - alcohol or no. Sunday I...