A rebel without a clue.

Passing Arras in 2014 and 2016 there was only one place selling 'craft' or 'artisanale' beer and now 7 years later it's everywhere! Did a silent Saturday morning tour of both place  prior to the café opening for two coffees and a croissant. Then picked up two saucisson poulet  from the rotisserie truck which is ubiquitous at French town centre street Marché before leaving Arras south passed the Citadel. Claustrophobia, panic attack and an asthma attack too. All in the same overwhelming bar surrounded by meaningless English Somme memorial visitors. It took me a lot of effort to overcome the tension and to relax. When I finally found the Airbnb: first walking to one end of town the correct way before receiving a welcome message with 27 Rue General LeClerc, not 27 Rue General Faidherbe as in Airbnb, and dying from lack of air through my windpipe and almost becoming heavily soiled in the trouser area, and finally putting the code on the door to think it wasn't openi...

Piétons and Deviations... Arras 8 years forward! Do I know dislike it. The war is well over? This heat is ceaseless and it's Friday. 7 days straight of high twenties. I am bewildered. And I am considering Vimy Ridge in the morning! *** Arras feels entirely different, but last time I was here was autumn or winter, and it was damp, Place Les Heros didn't feel to be surrounded by restaurants and bars on all four sides. I didn't spend time in Le Grand Place before, but that is the same on its four arcaded sides. So right sides of food or drink. As I sat in the bar looking at the Hôtel d'Ville those years ago I felt special as I was about to head to Peronne, on the section of Via Francigena I did between Canterbury and it. The previous time I was looking at the battle sites, the Grande Mine from the first morning of the Somme Battle 1916 and the Thiepval memorial, where I found a Charles Sherburn as fallen at that battle. Part of the 100 years anniversary. But now? 2023 and ...

But I wasn't. Drunk I mean. Didn't get to Rouen centre until nearly 7 and turned in at 10. Slept almost entirely until 6... There was a bit of background chatter and the bass sound from the oldest discotheque in France just 10 metres further on from my petit room on the ground floor. As I opened the window the road sweeper was doing his essential work to keep Rouen looking 'clean'. Such a fallacy. Having walked in to Paris through St Denis and Serselles cleanliness only stretches to what a tourist might perceive. I have this problem in LS7. Just over Clay Pit Lane Leeds is squeaky clean, but as you hit 'council estates' it's mountains of detritus where mowing the grass includes all the plastic which lies buried waste deep... After so many days on the move I miscounted the amount of time it took me to reach Rouen from Amiens. Yesterday morning I thought 5, but as I sat opposite Melody in the Taverne Saint Amant, I shouted 'its six'. My original quest ...

Bingo Bongo. As I follow the northern flowing, counterwise, of La Saâne, I leave an Auberge with a stomach full to its limited capacity with a proper Menu le Jour - the first full meal of the way I am walking. Lots of calories after 5 hours in increasing heat and humidity, with no idea where I am going (except towards La Seine)? The cows are spread out on the ground, where it is cooler, and I think I've another 3 hours heading towards that well known, and often eulogized, La Seine.

After the best repas last night I slept completely until just gone five and looked outside to a misty morning: opening the windows there was a welcome, but cold, breeze. Suddenly the temperature has dropped to June perfect and I've booked a flight back tomorrow! If only €200 could stretch until Monday I know I could continue. The damaged left foot is getting less swollen and less immovable, the coastline is beautiful: if there is such a truth? Monet painted along the coastline here so there must be something about the light? If I dip further in to debts, which I am meant to clear come September (and my main Camino experience after school holidays), it will mean I have this concern on top of the many trillions of other seeming nothings in my mind, ruminating. Funny thing is I haven't been asked to dog sit Archie yet, which is probably just the fact Iskara and David are exceptionally busy all the time, so I can't rely on the potential help to clear the outstanding prior to Se...

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 ...