A rebel without a clue.

Mosquito in the dorm! The last thing I expected, but then again those Asiatic bastards can find a niche almost anywhere that there is a little water... Next they'll cross the channel and chaos will reine! On this truly haphazard trip I tried Steak Tartare last night, which was surprisingly tasty, but I can't tell if it that or the linseed heads I plucked and ate which are causing me complaint in the bowels this morrow. The weather has truly changed and there is a gale flying in from La Manche. Yesterday in my haste and anxiety I tried to get out of the Hostel, perfectly fine minus the mosquito, and back onto the yacht. *** There is a bus at 9 so I am heading west into the unknown of Normandy - Calvados. Caen is it's destination. From there I feel drawn south towards Le Man's... On the bus heading over to Honfleur via Pont de Normandie,  where I will climb off, to continue on foot awhile longer. The GR223 goes through Calvados. Impossible I know, but I pray the PIP issue...

Back in Le Havre at the backpackers and I panicked. Bizarre. The large complex: part hotel and part hostel is amongst a large construction site back from Le Gare. To get in I first went into the foyer of the hotel and thought it was just like an a&o hostel in Nuremberg I recall a few years ago, but then the receptionist said the accommodation is around the back, surrounded by building site detritus, and a lot of Africans(generalizing) were coming in too carrying cases, dragging children, etc... I was a little bit tired from the long walk and didn't feel sure about the place and felt threatened!

Twenty five kilometres. Up and down, up and down! Those Valleuses and falaise. But I stopped at noon for a galette complete and the last section brought me to Cidre Lemercier  - a boon? And the train back to Le H(avre) - the haven/harbour, but in France I must remember to drop the 'haytch'. Tomorrow a storm blows in from the Océane Atlantique up La Manche  but my attention is further west Honfleur, Caen, Bayeux and D-Day beaches... I discovered that there is a hostel/backpackers near La Gare  in Le Havre, so not on a boat, swaying gently in my dreams this evening?

Nearly missed the stop for Harfleur! It was a short journey. Being here reminds me of seeing Henry Vth with Tom back during university days. We were very high up so it wasn't perfect to see or hear from there and I think we had a pillar for company, but it was a RSC production so it was worth the strained necks? Once more into the breach... *** Around an hour later and I headed back to Le Havre. If I had more energy I would have walked back to Le Havre as it was only 8.5kms between it and the La Plage, at the end of the tram line(€4.50 on all transport all day). After briefly seeing the cleaners I took full possession of the yacht for the evening. Then went and had a thorough shower. This morning, Saturday, I just missed the bus towards Honfleur(122 to Caen) so that has to be another occasion: the bus left just as the travel office opens to get a ticket. You need cash otherwise... France in the 21st century. Now I am heading north on the 13 to Étretat where the French White Cliffs ...

Rouen. And west again... Train to Abancourt, waiting for the bus replacement service to Rouen. The site of a vast equipment and supplies depot, for the western front in WW1, after arrival at Le Havre and Rouen to be organy and redistributed to the front. But now there is no indication of anything like that except many lines meeting at the Gare a few miles from the Hameu... Accommodation sorted, but it's another single room with everything in it for €58 ... The one last time isn't available and that was a single room too. It's only got a sofa bed. But I am minimal anyway. And it's a place to rest prior to walking or hitching tomorrow... I could follow the Seine towards the sea and Honfleur... But it is Friday tomorrow. But I am being dragged/drugged south towards the end of my perambulations in 2014 - Chatellerault and then Poitiers? Yes. I will hitch tomorrow south towards Chatellerault and pick up where I left off or head to the Plum Village once more? No I won't T...

The fullest bus from Leeds to the airport, the fullest airport and the fullest plane, but, somehow, I coped and around midnight I found my way, after a piss across the street, to the Gîtes d'Etape(€15 with Credential) run by Les Amis du Beauvais vers Compostelle. Crept in took my sleeping bag to the room, was greeted by the guy from Amiens who was using the toilet and slept until around 6am. Having dealt with my financial difficulties for July I can forget it until August, although, try as I might, I couldn't contact the DWP to ask them to do the Mandatory Reconsideration... So I must, at some point, this couple of weeks walking the Camino speak to them and start the long ball game rolling. It has to go to appeal once more but that took from September 2016 to April 2017 to be resolved ... So here I am. Away from what can never help me towards the happiness I so sorely need: it's always so quiet on an evening in smaller French cities: although I do live directly above a coup...

So I returned to the flat just after noon, with no intention of leaving it all day, as I tried to cope with the various distractions which came from all directions. As the clock crept towards home-time, for those working around the centre and traveling through the various arterial roads around my flat, the kids were playing nehnah-nehnah on the landing, there was a clattering of metal objects falling on the construction site, which pervaded the rainy space between it and level eleven, towards my oversensitive hearing and the sounds of reversing continued like a monotonous and tedious lullaby drilling into my skull ... Oh and then there was another car alarm to add to the joy, but hew it was brief ... And then there was a siren drawing me to my doom as the JCB continued to reverse beyond 6pm. After all that I slept undisturbed until 5. When I rolled over, in the post dream haze, until opening the curtain I was greeted by rain once more, and stripped the bed to wash the linen. Heatwave i...