WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 12

Bonneval to Cloyes-sur-le-Loir: 32km

Eva Maria is ready with breakfast at 7. She likes to work at night, she tells us, getting inspiration in the dark, and painting. It’s a spiritual process.

She’s keen that Denis and I leave together. And so we get booted up in the courtyard and set off after a brief blessing. She presses a small figure into our palms as she holds our hands for the benediction. It is a beautiful reprentation of the virgin Mary made of shrapnel from the battlefields of the first world war. I welcome all blessings that come from the heart, and some weights are good to carry.

So Denis and I walk off together, and Eva Maria was quite right, as for the half a day we walk to Châteaudun, we become proper pilgrims.

Another delightful aspect of the morning is the rain. It is the first time I’ve had to think about my coat outside the tent.

By the end of the 20km, I have doubled the amount of vocabulary learnt so far on this trip. In addition to vocabulary for every stage of the bread making process, and equipment for copperplate engraving, I can now add watertower, blackberry, nettles, alder and brambles, amongst others, and I can almost pronounce the word for wind tubine.

When we arrive at Châteaudun, we sit on the bench in the shadow of the grand château overlooking the river and say our goodbyes. Although you’re never sure any goodbyes are final on the Camino.

I walk up into the town for a SIM card, some lunch, and a quick look at the château. But it’s one of those days, and my quick backpacker stop becomes extended when I bump into the very charming Claire on the way up the hill.

She’s resting and we start talking. She’s done this route, but many years ago. Now she’s in retirement and caring for her family. She speaks with such kindness and fixes you with the most extraordinarily intense blue eyes. I don’t think she stopped smiling the whole time we talked.

When we get to the top, she invites me for a coffee on the main square. She shows me a brochure of a Loire cruise she would like to do, but fears her duties won’t allow her. I hope she will go and I tell her so. She invites me to stay for lunch, but sadly I don’t have time. So she leads me to the good supermarket down the road, where we say goodbye.

I spend some more time in Châteaudun sorting out my phone, having a quick peer in at the château and seeing the old town. Then I take an exit from the town that goes through the back door of the beautiful church of Mary Magdalene, which is simple and empty and somehow grander for it.

And now here I am, having left much too late, of course, back on what promises to be a more typical stretch, back across the plains, a short route to Cloyes-sur-le Loir. Claire taught me how to pronounce that one.

I’ve spoken to the campsite at Cloyes, who close at 7.30 and told them I’ll run. All other possibilities have gone. Denis very kindly phoned my first choice, the police station, at a coffee stop earlier, but I guess there’s been a crime spree in Cloyes, as no beds were available. So, ‘running’ it is.

And four hours later, I make it, with 20 minutes to spare. The woman at reception is as friendly as she was on the phone and gives me a plot in prime position for the toilet block. I buy the biggest bottle of lemonade from the reception fridge and go sit in my empty spot for ten minutes to recover.

When I do get round to putting the tent up, the ground is hard as rock, and I’m starting to despair of finding a place anywhere on my huge plot, where I can drive the tent pegs in with my shoes, as I normally do. But the man opposite lends me his hammer and I happily bash them in, not thinking about how I’ll ever get them out again tomorrow.

And finally, it’s done.

I’ve grown to love my little tent, despite our frequent struggles. Every now and then, it’s good to unpack your life from the bag on your back and sleep in its contents.