Up 377 m down 309 m
In the common room of our Gite there was a set of scales hanging from the ceiling, so before we all set off, we decided to weigh our rucksacks. The lightest two were Lesley's an Anne's weighing in at just over 9 kg, these were followed by Seb's and mine at 10 kg, but the prize for the heavy weight champion of the Gite went to the older Frenchman whose sack weighed a staggering 13.5 kg (that was before he added two aluminium bottles of water)!
Our way this morning was a bit baffling. We left town in the usual way (up hill), the way marks as well as being the usual Red/white balises, were also blue and yellow scallop symbols on a yellow arrow pointing the correct way. In places the red/whites had become faded, but the new signs were always there. We passed by a big man made lake. Soon the red/white balises disappeared altogether, but there was always the new style signs in sight.
After a while we got a bit twitchy as we had expected some off road walking and it had not materialised. We decided to check or British guide book and our French accommodation guide (it has a simple map of the camino in it) to work out where we were: neither bore any resemblance to the route we had been walking! What should we do, go back or trust these new signs? We decided to have faith and in the spirit of pilgrimage and the pilgrim chant of 'Ultreia' (ever onwards) we continued.
At a corner where the signage was a bit indistinct, we stopped and consulted the books again. We had just worked out where we thought we were, when two German men came up and said "you must follow the yellow", so we were now more convinced this was the way to go. Shortly after we were rewarded with a familiar red/white balise.
Our path took us along the right route for about 2km before our guide books and the reality on the ground differed again. The reason we concluded was that they were building a new major trunk road and the Camino had been redirected to avoid it. It also meant that we missed our first village and water point, and in fact we did not visit a village for 20km, when we came to the village of Miramont-Sensacq.
It was after 1pm so we decided to go into the church and say mid-day prayer and then have our lunch. As we sat in the shade with our boots off, beginning to prepare our picnic, a man came over dressed in jeans and an open shirt, "were we pilgrims?" he asked, "yes" we said, and in conversation we told him of our trip. He then told us he was the parish Priest Fr. Roger. Lesley explained that I was also a Priest in the C of E. When he heard this he asked if we would like the parish stamp in our Pilgrim's passport and also a cup of coffee once we had finished our lunch. So following our lunch, we went to Fr. Roger's house, where he stamped our passports and then settled us into his living room whilst he made us coffee.
We then had a chat about our churches etc. He wanted to know how the Anglican Church fared in numbers on a Sunday and in numbers of Priests. In terms of attendance, we both had similar stories to tell each other. He then told us that he and one other priest were responsible for between 16 and 20 parishes, spread over quite a large area (sounds like rural Norfolk!).
Fr. Roger then told us that he had been able to walk the last 100km of the Camino to Santiago himself, but gave the impression that he would like to do the whole walk, if he had the time.
He asked if we liked French cuisine to which we replied 'yes'. As a conversation piece, I also said I liked Armagnac. Fr. Roger asked if I would like one, I said yes, and so he opened a cupboard with about 10 or 15 bottles of different Armagnacs, pulled out a bottle and poured me an Armagnac into my coffee cup.
After I had consumed the drink, we took our leave and after much handshaking resumed our journey, buoyed up by the friendly welcome of this hard working Priest.
We were grateful that we had decided to stop in the village of Pimbo tonight rather than go on to the next town another 7km away, as it meant that we could spend time with Fr. Roger, because after all this is what pilgrimage is all about, encounters with many different and varied people.
We were also grateful when we got to Pimbo and were shown into the Gite by the lady from the tourist office. There was a five bed bedroom, a kitchen / common room with a terrace, bathroom etc. And by six when the tourist office closed, we realised that we had this all to ourselves.
We did our laundry and hung it outside to dry, we then went to explore and discovered a little winery in the village near the church. Unfortunately it was closed, so we went to the Church for evening prayer and then back to the Gite to make our meal. As it was cooking I popped back to the winery, found the owner and tasted and bought a very nice bottle of his wine which we had with our meal. As the evening was warm we ate out on the terrace looking fantastic views of some of the countryside we had travelled across.
Tonight was the second time I regretted not having a car, so I could take a couple of cases of Pimbo wine home with me!
On the Camino in France
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