A rebel without a clue.

I still can't cross the Pegasus Bridge! Although a bagpiper was playing around the cluster of people and the hanging of flags. On that side industry and the canalixlzed Orne this side a Château and the canal. Straight walk into Caen and I've decided to stay a night. At the Postern gate is the old quarter. Indeed I am sat having a coffee, sheltering from the dark clouds and occasional downpours, at La Poterne , where I will stay for repase. Booked in to an Airbnb with an actual host! That's quite rare now I find as they are usually just holiday let apartments(€42). A pile of Jambon which I took to be a roast ham, but my next door neighbour look to have Gammon. I definitely had a higher pile of ham with frites and a cidre sauce: reminds me of mums. She doesn't use cider, but mustard and onions and liquid. Great Airbnb host. Perfect place. Had a puppy and two ferrets for company. Slept well until 6. Down to Paul bakery where it's yogurt, pain au raisin, Zumo Naranja an...

Washed myself, and some smalls, in room 10 of L'Ecallier(€60) in one of those half baths I have only ever squeezed into in France. Currently I am enjoying a second Ciney Blonde contemplating at Andouillette(AAAAA), I asked the chef to make sure it's well done. Tomorrow I turn my face south and head towards Le Man's. It was wide, but not long. The Andouillette. And it was local. Troyes is famous for it and it was a pale imitation of the baked in the oven loveliness I've had previously in the areas closer to it's home. But it did the trick, same as the Ciney, the bain and the coat hangers. I will be heading south for a few days. At least until Thursday, when Amiens or Paris. The head honcho is definitely on speed. I think English and Irish tourists have worn him down. He sees so many people without any real connection. He was interested I was walking el Camino from Tuesday, but he quickly went back to being rapid... *** Opposite is a couple who are too age difference ...

The story of Noah's Ark was the story of monogamy when the animals went in two by two. You work for a pittance to pay over the odds for a two week holiday in a place everyone else has escaped to fiddle the time away eating ice creams and candy floss all to see you had no experience and no money and you go back to work feeling more bitter than ever before against your children, wife, the guy with the girl in the deck chair opposite and then in October you discover you've only a few weeks left to live because you're incurable of being irrelevant... Guy from NC yesterday asked me if I had heard of Deliverance, I had, but said I hadn't. I know the story. I know how it goes... But what a way to introduce himself and his hometown... I mean it's like saying 'have you heard of The Ripper? Well I am from London'! Walking through a marshland before the Caen and Pegasus Bridge and now I have reached foot pain threshold. 35 kilometres as a donkey brays in the field nex...

Before I returned to the none hotel, YOU are Deauville, I ate heartily of a assette Mixte from the kebab house opposite. At €19(AS kebab) with a bottle of water it was probably the cheapest option, and largest portion possible, in Touristville. Left Trouville-sur-Mer, with the prerequisite baguette sandwich to eat at the first natural break, just gone eight and by nine Deauville had gone back into it's raffia box. Had to stop for a piss next to the battery position protecting the entry to La Seine. Nasty Nazi Merde! Canisy. Being a Goon(the Goon Show) is not anything to do with the characters from Popeye, but an in joke about onaism... While almost falling into a ditch, courtesy of a passing articulated lorry, I was pulled out by a passing jogger. Thanks to her, once she continued on, I  knew exactly what a falaise gap is betwixt the sea and heaven... *** After a brief, but heavy, downpour - the first of today - I come down to Houlgate via a hollow way... So Yorkshire I could screa...

More than tempted to say fuck it to a third day of walking with the pitiful weather conditions forecast - heavy thunderstorms all day as the rain begins again - or find an umbrella... Sat having a coffee back in Trouville-sur-Mer, surrounded by photos of French post war idols (all dead, except Brigitte Bardot) and watching the storm begin. Slept well in the hotel/hostel -, but, at €48, it's the most expensive dormitory I've ever had the pleasure to hear people snore, drag flip-floped feet, cough their lungs up, douche for hours and the gentleman on reception was either new or on opium or both ...YOU are Deauville (am I? Oh I thank you! But I am sure I am not!) The rain! Last year I was fighting a heat wave and this year I am being drenched in La Manche conveyor of Océane Atlantique. Global warning is bollocks: it's just weather and statistics (we have so many records and the world is covered in recorders in the 21st) not so long since there was no La Manche! Setting off at ...

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!