After a restful night's sleep we got up and went to breakfast, which was just as chaotic as supper, with Therese dressed in a large flowing caftan trying to cater to every one's needs including boiling up a litre of milk for my hot chocolate.
Staying in the house with us, was a German lad from Hanover, who whilst camping in the woods had done something to the tendons in his foot. He had tried to limp on but had to give up and had been sent to Therese by someone in the village as she had been a nurse. She had taken him to the doctor, applied ice packs, and given him foot massages.
His foot which had been very swollen looked better but it was still painful so Therese was taking him off to Lectoure (the nearest large town) to see a different doctor for a second opinion.
So with hurried goodbyes we took our leave of this wonderful lady. This was one of those encounters, which is what pilgrimage is all about, and which you would never have if you went on one of the pre-packaged trips on the Camino that many of our fellow walkers were taking.
Thus buoyed up, we went on our way. We stopped at the village of Castet-Arrouy to say morning prayer and were greeted by a pack of dogs, one, a black spaniel, tried to lick my legs and followed us into the church.
When we had finished and came out of the Church, the black spaniel decided to come with us, it obviously knew the route as it would range all over the fields in front of us, and then would be waiting at the turns in the track, almost saying to us "it's this way, come on you slow coaches". We told it to go home, and that it's owners would be worried about it, but it just wouldn't leave us alone.
(At this stage I had visions of our holiday walking the Corfu trail when a couple of stray dogs latched onto our group, and raided a chicken coup, resulting in an irate woman chasing after us and demanding compensation. When the dogs and some friends tried to follow us the next day, we thwarted them by blocking the exit to a pedestrian bridge over a fast flowing waterway with some pallets).
The dog had now been with us for over 5km but if we shouted at her all she did was slink and cower. The town of Lectoure was rapidly approaching and still the dog kept with us, as we got to the town she continued to lead us onwards.
As we approached the Cathedral, she went around a corner at the same time as we spied a nice little garden where we could have our lunch. We darted in, sat down and lunched, we had lost her at last! Perhaps she had now gone home, I didn't think she was a stray as she had a collar and tag, and seemed well fed as she did not try and beg when we had our eleven o'clock snack.
Over lunch we reviewed our options, should we stop here in Lectoure as planned or should we go further tonight and press on to Condom to pick up my iPod on Friday instead of Saturday. The decision hinged on accommodation at Marsolan, Lesley made a phone call, yes they had beds, so we decided to press on once we had explored the town.
Our first stop was the Cathedral: obviously it had a thriving congregation and was a much loved and well used building. Whilst in the Cathedral I discovered why I had been a bit uncomfortable walking this morning. Each night we wash out socks and underwear and then the next day, if it's not completely dry, we attach it to our rucksacks with nappy pins to finish the drying process. I discovered that I still had a nappy pin attached to my underwear, hence the discomfort!
After I had adjusted my hose, we then had a look round the rest of town. We then decided to have an Orangina before continuing on our way, so we popped into an open air bar we had seen. Unfortunately someone else had got there before us, the black spaniel! Should we turn tail and run, or should we sit down and have a drink? We decided to brave it out and ordered our drinks. Was the bar one of her regular stopping points (as she seemed quite at home?) Would she follow us again when we left? All these questions went through our minds, however, just before we planned to leave, the black spaniel trotted off never to be seen again.
Relieved, we continued on our way through vast rolling fields to the village of Marsolan to our Gite. When we arrived, our host explained that had been going to share our room with a French chap who had passed us on the road, but that he had changed his mind and upgraded to Chambre d'hote, (I didn't think we smelt that bad - after all we do take regular showers and wash our clothes). His decision worked to our favour as we had the room to ourselves. It was another hot day and we were able to get a lot of washing dried and settle down to relax in the Gite garden, before another fantastic meal. 15 of us sat down to eat and a very friendly Frenchman kept on plying us with wine so we slept very well.
On the Camino in France
1 comment:
Espero que os estéis divirtiendo. A ver que pasa en Espana.
Tanya
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