WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 8

Évreux to Muzy: 35km

I’m loath to leave my beautiful room in Évreux, but it’s getting a little late. Time to visit the cathedral, get the stamp and go.

But it seems that Évreux has an issue with stamps. I go to the cathedral first, and I’m very happy to see that a verger is in. But when I ask him for a stamp, he launches into a long spiel, not much of which I understand, but mainly saying that I have to wait for the official to come at eleven o’clock. It’s all very complicated, he tells me: he has to do this, he has to do that. I want to say to him, No, he just has to stamp the little cardboard booklet, but instead I smile and tell him it’s not important. It is.

So I head for the next best bet, the local café, where I am immediately accosted by Anis as I walk in. He becomes my best friend for the next ten minutes and buys me a coffee, which is nice because I couldn’t get the coffee machine to work at the house. He tells me about all the dodgy types I’ll meet on the road, and that just because they’re friendly and start talking to you doesn’t mean I should trust them. He asks for my number. I politely decline.

Anis has just come off the night shift at the discothèque. He finished at six. I think he’s been in this bar for the last three hours.

The woman behind the bar keeps an eye on me, but when I ask her for a stamp she tells me it’s more than her job’s worth to do that. It’s her son’s business, and she doesn’t want to do anything official that might get them into trouble. I try to explain, but it’s no good, and I tell her not to worry, because she’s looking concerned.

So, next bet: the boulangerie-pâtisserie. They haven’t failed me yet. I’m delighted to find a tuna crudités baguette, which has become a bit of a Holy Grail: tuna and salad together. The lady is kind, though. She does at least look for a stamp.

Then I turn around and see that the station is behind me, and at last I have success. The young man has no idea what I’m asking for, and when I show him the credencial, he’s very concerned that he’s not going to be giving me the right sort of stamp. I tell him that, at this stage, any stamp will do. I just need to show I was here.

He stamps across two whole stamping spaces, but I’ll forgive him. It’s a beautiful station stamp, with the date incorporated. If I had the power to bless him, I would.

I know it’s going to be another long unpeopled stretch, so I am glad when a gentleman out for his Sunday stroll, stops me to ask about my walk. He tells me his wife walked two caminos but he was too old to do one now. I hope he changes his mind.⁵

A few hours later, I sit down to have lunch in the village of Grossœvre. It’s a very humane village. Walking up to the church, the first thing I see is the local library, set up in the middle of the road. Turning the corner, I see it is part of the mairie. It seems such a good way to use the space after all the grand mairies I’ve passed en route.

The morning’s been another pleasantly nondescript walk. After getting my stamp and passing out of the suburbs, the route follows a gratifyingly straight path through the fields, following the course of the old Roman road. After a few days of pretty undulating countryside, a stretch where you can cover miles is always welcome.

Today was always going to be a difficult day. There was no way of breaking down the 40 kilometres between Évreux and Dreux. Walking across this plateau, you understand why. The villages are hamlets of either small residential areas or farm buildings, with the occasional manoir, of course. There is not a lot of shelter between villages and their benches

What I hoped for and thought I’d never get was this weather: the temperature cool, the sky grey and full of clouds, and a strong breeze blowing. Even months ago, when I was planning this in England, I was worried about completing this long and very exposed stretch in the heat. But the weather, it seems, has come down in my favour. I don’t know how long it will last, but the timing, for me, is perfect.

As I finish my baguette, a group of boys, playing football on the pitch by the church, come running at full pelt around the corner to collect their ball, which has flown into the churchyard. Seeing me sitting there having lunch, they immediately slow down to a fast walking pace, and get three gratifying bonjours in quick succession.

After lunch, the plains continue. The landscape reminds me of the sea. That same feeling of immensity. The huge skies. Especially with the clouds sweeping across them, although the occasional wood, is always a welcome punctuation mark.

I stop in a slightly larger village mid-afternoon. It has a large fishing pond to distinguish it. As I take a break, I notice two boys who’ve been cycling around the village for the last few minutes. They’re now standing completely still, holding their bikes, staring at me across the lake. I am disconcerted until I notice the true object of their attention, the couple half hidden by the tree in front of me. Sunday afternoon amusements in the village.

I keep walking, stopping in any village with a bench. No other facilities are on offer.

At the end of another long day, it’s a great relief to discover that my farmhouse Airbnb is a few kilometres closer than I thought it was.

I’m greeted by Catherine, an artist who lives in this beautiful old cottage. After she’s shown me my room and I’ve had a shower, I find her in her studio, where she talks me through her work as a copperplate engraver. Her machinery is fascinating, and her art, she tells me, is not representational. I try to stop myself treating her like one of my students. I could swear the print in front of me is a Portuguese man o’ war.

Then, wonder of wonders, she takes me into the kitchen, where she’s prepared a beautiful dinner from ingredients grown in her garden. Well, the courgette is from her garden. She’s delighted when I translate courgette into English for her. But the tomatoes, she tells me, she had to buy. She grows them herself, but the heat this year dried out the flowers before the tomatoes ever came.

We talk about her life as an artist, and when I tell her I’m going to Japan, she tells me about her own connections there. She too will be going to Japan this year, not for the first time, but to hold her first exhibition there.

I feel privileged again to have stayed in thid house, and to have eaten food from the garden. But by ten o’clock I have to excuse myself, as I can barely stay awake. I climb up to my little room, settle into my very comfortable bed, hang my damp socks on the windowsill, and sleep like the dead.