A rebel without a clue.

Thought I heard bagpipes and then I realised it was true just as whoever it was hit some bum notes, but I was welcomed in to Quiberville like a lost comrade: another of the 1942 beaches where many lost their lives for no gain? Laying below the canopy of a broad leaved tree I have a place at the Chambre D'hotes Le Castle d'Vergers while it is being made ready. €65 bed, breakfast and repas this evening. Definitely worth the effort up and down the valleuses for 25kms as a fly bites my knee cap and worms work inwards on my underside! Insects seldom wait until you are dead to take you off to the next realm? *** Showered and out for the count for two hours. No one around so I creep back to the centre along the plage to a refreshing beer. I had another Entrecôte for lunch. It cost less than yesterday, but it all eats up my funds: it's good protein though. If I decide enough is enough there is a cheap flight back from Beauvais on Friday. It's all about money. Inflation etc. Act...

How does the story end? Happily ever after or with the death of all the main characters? With a whimper or a bang? *** OK so now I am hesitating about going to Sussex. Traveling through London, etc, will wipe me out. But so will France? And I do still have a ticket back to Leeds which misses out the fuss of the UK for just a few days... Looks like now I've hit the coast and I don't know the West (Caux) of Normandy so I am going left and not right to the same ferry terminal I've passed through once before! *** All of life's dross is passing by into Dieppe, ready to be in the same positions they occupied yesterday, waiting the same ferry passengers who sit and stare at the dross without seeing the mirror they are reflected in. I sit awaiting the happy beads. I've not had the moment of extreme contentment: perhaps wheat fields, rapeseed fields or flaxseed fields can only inspire so much in their monotony? Cafe des Voyageurs where no one looks to have gone very far for ...

Straight ahead morning towards Neufchâtel en Bray, where I think I may struggle to get a reasonably priced bed for the evening, even if one is available in this tourist town. Normandy definitely is geared towards gastronomy and hospitality. It's beautiful, but not a million miles off Sussex or Kent in feeling and look... As I am heading north now, and not to Rouen, I wonder if I shouldn't head over the channel in the morning? Call it a day? Ideally walking to Dieppe Wednesday and Thursday before the ferry on Friday morning would conclude this unusual few days walking during a heatwave... There are buses, but not until 5pm and at 13:45 I'd just be drunk, and probably miss the bus. So auto-stop? ... Yes. I hitched. If I was younger, and spoke better French, the girl who was going home from LeClerc towards Dieppe and who dropped me on the harbour side, would've had made us very happy. But she stopped to take me forward and didn't need to take me all the way, I was prep...

Thoroughly exhausted today. Unlike me to feel defeated by something when walking, but the relentless warmth is difficult. Last year I had a similar experience coming down to Deltebre in Catalonia - that was along the coast line so there was always a coastal breeze, but this time the sun beats down and the humidity increases. It's all too much? I think I had a little heat stroke last evening. I decided to take the hotel up on demi-pension and could only manage two of the three courses. I think I was gone to sleep before my head hit the pillow? But it was extremely warm in the room so I woke some time later with a slight headache. It went with a little water, but now, as I face breakfast, I don't feel like getting all my stuff together and walking too far to God knows where in 28 plus heat and complementary humidity... It's northern France in early June... Had a proper cleanse. Hotels which have baths shouldn't be ignored? The breakfast was good and I feel semi normal - f...

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 ...