A rebel without a clue.

Feeling like I couldn't manage another morsel - not even a wafer thin mint - so is it always rude to ask them not to give you a dessert? Could I please take it with me tomorrow if refusal is disgusting? 

A mighty thunder storm overhead during the night. Slept peacefully until then. Around 7pm ate the fayre provided by the sœurs, then directly after returning the tray with used plates, cutlery etc. Retired. Sober since Friday. Hopefully this will be a proper clear-headed day along the way? The thunderstorm may have reduced the lunchtime temperature? Along with the chirping of birds I have the mighty call of a peacock as the elderly sœur opens up the eglise. All packed and ready for day three. This time I have come away to remember a before the evil of the previous few years where I have turned to alcohol as a substitute for reality. It's untruthfulness has corrupted me. I await now petit dejeuner. They gave me vinegar for the stings I'd received on my shins, walking a fair distance through talk grass, nettles, brambles, etc, as I stumbled into Feuquieres around 4pm.  Confronted by impenetrable rapeseed six feet high, where there should be a path, I decided to plunge through and ...

Flaxseed and coughing up the dust which I imagine I inhailed from the last remnants of the walnuts in the bag? Up from one river valley to the pasture and chasing bullocks, heifers and protective mothers. Down towards Grandvilliers and the end of today? Never! In Grandvilliers nothing was grand, but I grabbed another Turkish Kebab, and I think this Assette Mixte was better. The salad was fresher, the sausage was more meaty. But two kebabs in two days! At least I aren't as exhausted today as I was Saturday. This evening I am staying in an out building once more next to a small nun/sisters home. And I know I have found a Camino rhythm. Only in France. At first I tried the zed-bed and I think I could just about manage it, although it's narrow. Then I took the large cushions off the sofa - they looked grand but they sloped to the right and there were two terrible ridges: then I thought I could cope with the Zed-bed, but just then the Sœurs came to take away my passport and saw the ...

Awake quite naturally at 6am, French time, the dawn chorus below me. The chirping of the sparrows in the hedge and the hoots of the geese in their penned enclosure. Have discovered a few bites from yesterday. Walking through forests these things happen? Was mentally and physically exhausted this most of yesterday afternoon/evening but found sleeping surrounded by the noises of nature difficult, however by 9 all was pretty quiet and I was in and out of snoozing. After closing the window and drawing the curtains that was it. Pitch black until the moon lite the way to the toilet once during the evening. Another day going God only knows where and with what fortune? I don't mind and I have no choice but to keep putting one foot in front of the other? On El Camino one must surrender to it ...

Ouch... Forgot that those steps were very steep in the terraced house and very nearly ended up in Urgencies, once more, as I saw myself as a pile of broken limbs at the bottom on the first floor. Luckily, or unluckily, I am now walking 30kms with a busted left foot. To stop myself falling I flung myself against the wall and collided with the step and my left foot - the one which is already very painful! Mainly walking on roads through suburbia until one park prior to the underpass below the main road to Rouen and then I am in the countryside. There is a feeder stream Selle by my left side, but I am still on the road. Cuckoos in the woods and fields of ripening wheat to my right. Left foot sore, but ok - for now! ... I could go no further. As I approached Conty the restaurant on the left was closed so I had to continue onto the crossroads into the village and hope the Auberge was stil serving food. After stumbling passed a Turkish kebab place I quickly retraced my tracks and went inside...

A long day. Topped off by 30+ temperature. Just in time for happy hour at la Green Corner - the same place I came to last July, when the temperature was closer to 40°C. The Airbnb looks like student accommodation with a couple in the room below me. There is some fête going on in the Parc Saint-Pierre and the room faces that direction, and I reckon they're heading there later, but no worries. Just a half priced pint and back to a second shower? There is a market from 7am along the quayside and I must walk before it gets too warm in the afternoon? 30°C by 4pm. 

Heading out of the flat to begin the day getting to Amiens and first stop Sainsbury's for a can of CBD. But they've run out. Second port of call Pret a Manger on Albion Place, but, for some annoying reason, they've changed the playlist to generic 1980s pop from the interesting eclectic mix of previous times. So I will never go to another Pret unless I get sound cancelling headphones? Whitney fucking Huston... The new pair of Mountain Equipment shorts are great, but the drawstring is woefully short so I can't actually fasten them up! Leeds BID operatives - street rangers - are discussing a dead pigeon - fried pigeon. Thick as a brick. I am over sensitive this morning and was crying over the phone, as I spoke to mother, as I was worried I might never see Lola again. She's wonderful! Yesterday she had a lovely time running in the wheat and barley grass fields, with Ruby up alongside the copse, but came out with a bloody nick on her right paw. She seemed unconcerned abo...