WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 14

Vendôme to Prunay- Cassereau: 26km

Always stop at the first bar-tabac when walking into town. This morning the first bar-tabac is almost full of regulars working away at their scratchcards. But a stranger with a rucksack seems to make a welcome change.

As soon as I walk in, one man, Maurice, starts asking questions, then other customers follow. A man at another table asks me if I’ve been to Bristol as he’s a fan of the rugby. When I say yes, he buys me a coffee.

Another man then starts talking about the chemin. I get the gist and start to list the places I have been through. But then he very directly, and usefully, tells me to pay attention: it’s his chemin from Le Puy he wants to talk about, not mine.

At the end, we take a jolly photo. Sylvie, the only one who speaks English, but who can hardly get a word in, takes it for us. I’m sad there’s no photo of her, but I the smiles all round very much reflect on her.

Central Vendôme proves to be an excellent place. Not only is the town a sight to behold, it also restores my vision enough to appreciate it.

I pop into an optician’s to buy some lens cleanser, and after I tell him about my issue with them slipping off my sweaty nose, assistant goes to tighten both pairs as a favour, and brings them back sparkling clean. I struggle to contain my gratitude.

I am glad to have clear vision for the Abbey of the Trinity, which ranks up there with Rouen for me. It has the same lacey stone carving on the facade, but the interior outdoes everything.

Finally, in the choir, with all the misericords flipped up, I get to see the secular carvings I learnt about at school. I haven’t been this excited since seeing a perfect motte and bailey at Gisors on a bike ride to Paris.

Then, as I’m leaving town, just after I’ve taken a mouthful of Mars bar, three people stop me to ask me a question. When they see my mouth is full, instead of saying, “Oh, it’s okay,” and carrying on, they simply stand there, smiling, and tell me to take my time.

Eventually, when I’ve finished chewing, they ask where I’m going. This time, I remember to ask them the same question. Of course, one of them has walked the Chemin du Puy. He immediately tells the woman and gentleman with him to give me the details of their son’s gîte, at the end of the fourth stage, where I simply must stay when I do that route because “he’s very nice, just like his mother.” They do as they’re told.

The woman begins, “It’s just after…” and starts describing where it is, but he interrupts her, laughing. “Can you imagine if she told you where she lived? She’d say, ‘You know the shop on the corner…’” They all burst out laughing. I wish she’d told me. I would have looked it up.

The most unexpected friendliness of the day comes many hours later, after a long walk through gently undulating fields of corn, sunflowers and wheat, with very little shade.

I sit down a couple of hours before the end of the day, just outside the village of Ambloy, where I’ve found a patch of shade at a fork in the road beside a tall hedge. I’m sitting there, using my rolled sleeping mat still strapped to my rucksack as a makeshift seat, sorting out my water and facing the foliage, when two cyclists come riding past. The woman stop and comes over and the man joins her. They introduce themselves as Pauline and Bert.

There’s something very special about cyclists on the Caminos who stop to say hello, although I suspect my moment of bliss sitting on a shady verge may quite understandably have been read as situation warranting concern.

Pauline and Bert are especially special because they also give me food, reaching for granola bars and cream cheese from their panniers. They would offer more, but I fear I would eat the lot and just fall asleep in my little verge paradise.

We chat for a while about our journeys. They finish tomorrow in Tours and are staying at the campsite tonight. I nearly stayed there myself, but decided to push on a little further. We take a photo and they pedal away.

I’m very happy to find this is a region of open churches. I stop at Ambloy, first of all, to sit in the little foyer, where I happily find a stamp, and then again, a little further along, in the stunningly beautiful church of Prunay-Cassereau. The outside seems well maintained and not that old, but inside it feels ancient. The roof is built by shipwrights, the pillars riddled with ancient woodworm holes. It feels like a place where the ancestors still worship.

And then I make a quick trip out of the village to my hosts for the night, surviving my first actual dog attack for many walks. Two dogs run out, the owners running out apologising behind them. I wave my sticks around and get away with barely a scratch. No blood drawn. It’s funny, something like this would have terrified me years ago. But today it’s just something to laugh off, with caution, of course.

And there are no photographs for the evening, for all the right reasons. I’m invited in by Nadine and Christian to join their family for the evening. It’s Saturday, and Nadine’s daughter, son-in-law and three of her grandchildren will be visiting later. I would have thought this would have been a very good excuse not to accept a pilgrim, but I think, for her, it’s a very good reason to do so.

When the family arrive, I join them for cider on the terrace, and my first hot meal since I’ve been here. A haché, followed by a beautiful homemade flan. Sophie, Nadine’s daughter, and her son-in-law both speak English, and are able to help when I reach difficulties. The children practise what English they know.

Not surprisingly, the first thing I hear from them is, “Six, seven,” as they jump into the pool. I don’t know why this has spread so far, and I think if the children in my family were here, they would say the same and all be the best of friends.

Thank goodness for “six, seven.”

(with apologies to Pauline, if I got your name wrong!)