WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 30

Pons to Le Petit Niort: 32 kilometres

This morning, I’m up at quarter to six and out by quarter past seven. I am and I am not a morning person. I just find it such a leisurely time of day. Matheus, on the other hand, is up at 6.15 and out by 6.30. I admire his speed. But where was his coffee?

As I walk out through the arch of the old Hôpital de Pèlerins, built in the 12th century and still intact, I admire the graffiti carved into the stone walls, some of it ancient. Horseshoes with initials inside, a traditional sign of the way, evidence of the eternal desire to show we woz ‘ere.

It is a perfect distance to Saint-Genis-de Saintonges for second breakfast, an easy four-hour walk – pretty but not spectacular, warm but not hot.

My first stop is the bar-tabac, where while drinking my coffee, I see the owner’s tip for the 18.30 at Clairefontaine. I have been wanting to use the PMU betting machine since Denis explained it to me at our rainy day coffee stop walking from Bonneville. My grandad taught me to read the form, but I have always been a sucker for names. Loreley is irresistable. A €5 bet is placed as instructed.

Second stop is the supermarket to upgrade my water. I pour the bottles of unwanted warm tap water onto any flowers I can find. As I sit on a bench outside, reapplying the blue sun cream, a shopper leans out of her car window as she drives by to shout “Bon courage!” I don’t suppose the bench by the Saint-Genis Carrefour roundabout is on anyone’s bucket list, but it seems as perfect a place as anywhere right now.

My last call before leaving Saint-Genis is the boulangerie-patisserie I identified on the edge of the village, and it’s an excellent choice. With a boulangerie-patisserie, because I try to limit myself to no more than one a day, finding I’ve chosen a good one is always a relief.

The young woman, as soon as the regular customer has left, switches straight into English. Although she’s upset she cannot offer me a croissant, she does shows me the display of alternative pastries which banish all thoughts anything else. Then, having paid, I suddenly see the fruit jellies I’ve been craving for weeks. She sees me looking at them and hands me one for the road. I struggle to limit myself to a normal level of gratitude.

Saint-Genis has granted all my wished

Forests and flies begin at midday. Net on, head down. Good progress made. I stop in a small clearing in a village in the woods to eat my huge boulangerie sandwich, and after the all the excitements of Saint-Genis, I think that the rest of the day is going to be just this: running through flies, having a sit-down, and enjoying the fact I’m not going to be so late today.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, about six kilometres from the end, Alan appears. He’s very chatty now. This is his first chemin/camino and although it is just a short stretch for him, it is starting to have an affect. He talks of the ambiance of the haltes, and I remember, it does take a day or so to work out this strange world the first time you enter it.

He has a huge bunch of grapes in his hand and when I say I didn’t see any grapes, he points to the vines right next to us, which are overladen with them. I’m not quite sure how I missed all the grapes for the last few days, even though I’ve been photographing the vines. I’ll have to zoom in.

He’s also running out of water, so I give him half of mine and a hydration tablet. I’m never going to drink it. Then he says, “Right then, shall we go?” And it seems like we’re going to be walking together for the last six kilometres, which is pleasant in itself, but will also help towards my planned early arrival, as I won’t be able to loll around or photograph more fields.

We talk in English. He’s travelled all over the world. After losing his wife when the children were still young, he upped and left France and took them with him: Hungary, Bulgaria, Senegal, Mali, wherever a maths teacher was needed. When I tell him I speak some Hungarian, he offers a few phrases and I reply. That is another camino checkbox ticked.

We talk about opinions of the English and the French and the Hungarians. When I mention the magical effect of a French accent, he replies, “Oh, tell me about it. I lived off that for years. All I had to say was ‘Pass the salt,’ and I was irresistible.”

When we get to Mirambeau, almost the end of my stage, his eldest daughter and father come to pick him up. With his home in Bratislava and his international life, it seems I have caught him on a brief visit home.

I head off for a panaché and before continuing to the Maison des Pèlerins in Petit Niort, I backtrack to find a bank, which happens to be next to a supermarket, in which I happen to buy another few litres of drink, and down the whole bottle of orange juice sitting on the steps of the bank.

This is not good. Orange juice is a C on the A to E of healthiness marked on all the products here. I try to keep in the A and B range. But at least I never debase myself so far as to have a D or an E. C is an interesting crossover point between the healthy and the unhealthy, and necessary, because it includes orange juice and morning brioche. I get the feeling that although neither of these quite really merit a C for pure nutritional value, the French have decided that the psychological damage would be too great if such things were not allowed.

When I get to the Maison des Pèlerins, I’m surprised by its unexpectedly beautiful aspect, a lovely old village house and garden overlooking the 11th-century Romanesque church of Saint Martin.

I explore the church with its pre-glass window, and its ancient painted crypt dedicated to Saint Roch, the pilgrim who’s always keen to show you his bad leg.

The church is exceptional, if somewhat preoccupied with intruders: cats, candle thieves, time wasters trying to break into the little donation box. And yet the door is open day and night and it seems such a peaceful little place. At night the whole front is lit up with beautiful illuminations.

When I settle into the halte, I find it Matheus is there. We are the last two standing. Tomorrow he will walk on ahead to Blaye before doing his final stage to the family home just north of Bordeaux. And so the little group of people who have accumulated since Châtellerault will finally fade away.

But it ends with a lovely dinner sitting at the living room table, me with my box of salad, Matheus with his double portion of pot noodles, and we talk about travel, where I’ve been, where he wants to go. “I’ve been very lucky”, he says. “I got to travel a lot with my family.” Twenty-two years old, I still find it very hard to get the idea out of my head that though he may be an adult, he was so recently a child. I try to remember myself at 22. I felt as adult as I ever have. I think of those names on the war memorials outside all the village churches. I guess we’re as old as we have to be.