WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago: Day 31

Petit Niort to Cartelègue: 32km

The mornings are a little cooler at the moment as are the nights, so a 7am lie-in is neither impossible nor imprudent.

As I am making my way along the lanes, I think I hear the sound of medieval music coming from the church just over the fields. When I stop to listen, I can no longer hear it and think it must be my imagination.

However, when I approach the church, the remnants of a once full Abbey and historic resting place for pilgrims, a woman is playing a large old recorder while a man films her. The stopping starting notes are a perfect accompaniment to a wander around this building of arches and doorways now leading to nothing.

I pass through vineyards, and now I notice the grapes, but never white grapes like Alain found, always the dark grape, which he told me will be a little bit more bitter. If I see the white grapes, I may risk stealing a few.

At midday it starts to get hot and with perfect timing a surprise community restaurant appears. As there’s been nothing but breakfast brioche and coffee today, I decide to treat myself to a menu. It’s very simple. I very much like the choose-your-own-entrée buffet fridges. The main dish: slab of perfectly cooked pork with sauce and a green salad is just beautiful.

I eat all the bread that’s been given me to soak up the sauces, and to soak up any ill effects of the small glass of wine I risked having with the meal to celebrate entering the Bordeaux region. And to accompany my daytime drinking, I decided to check my betting slip from yesterday’s morning stop at the Saint-Genis bar-tabac .

To my delight, I find my first and only ever bet on the horses in France is giving me a return €20.50 for a €5 deposit. Loreley placed third. She needed to do no more. I think this will be the end of my French gambling career, unless I go back to that bar-tabac, of course. That really was an excellent tip.

Although stopping for lunch is a wonderful idea, it does mean that I’m now walking the second half after two o’clock and a full stomach. This is less of a good idea. But I’ll take it slowly, I’ll get there in the end.

After about an hour, I see a couple of benches at the side of a road in the woods, and a woman putting out chairs from her converted van by one of them for her and her husband to sit on. I sit on a bench a little away to leave them some privacy, but she comes running over to ask me if I’m on the pilgrimage. She and her husband do a little bit each year, she says, using their van as a support vehicle. She’s very excited to find out what I’m up to.

Eventually, she goes to join her husband and then comes running back over. Her husband, who hasn’t said much at all to me, apparently has said to her that I might like a cold drink. Obviously, I say yes.

She runs back over to the van, and I go to meet her. She’s washing fruit for me and gives me a lovely cold can of fruit drink. When I thank her, she repeats “It was my husband’s idea, he said you might want it.” She is determined her less demonstrative husband has the recognition he deserves. I return to my shady spot and luxuriate in the joy of a can and a bench.

I continue walking, according to the map, very close to the low-lying wetlands of the Gironde. There’s a gentle breeze, and the fragrance of pine resin in the air.

When I arrive in Etaules, I head for the bar-tabac to collect my winnings. The man shows me 20 euros and 50 cents on the screen, and I let him know I am new to this, “What do I do with that?”

He gives me two options. One of them is “récupérer”, so I go for the word I understand. And he hands over the cash. The men sitting at the tables around the bar applaud me. One shouts, “Bravo.” I feel as though I’ve won the lottery. For the last 6km I have a swing in my step.

With half a kilometre to go, a car pulls up beside me, the window down.

“Hello! You must be Rachel.”

“I am,” I say, presuming that it’s the person who’s going to be welcoming me. But no, it’s just someone who knows I’m coming.

“Oh, yeah, my friend, my neighbour’s going to be letting you in when you get there.” He wishes me a good way, and drives on.

When I arrive at Cartelègue, pretty much everything about it is perfect. This place on a map I’ve been considering for months and months becomes reality. All these little places which are options rather than obvious stops, I’ve always given them a lot of thought before I arrive at them.

Cartelègue has a stunning painted church, a small supermarket open at reasonable hours, a pharmacy should you need it, even a café. It also haa the most perfect little Halte Jacquaire, perfectly clean, modern washing machine, dryer, new bathroom, little kitchen fully stocked, coffee machine, and cotton sheets.

Best of all is the greeting from Coralie. I’d spoken to her yesterday when I booked, and she had kindly said, maybe if she spoke doucement in French, we’d get along just fine. She is such a happy, lovely woman, dragged back from her family evening to set me up, her daughter dropping by to check where she is.

Coralie hasn’t done the chemin herself, but after taking in many pilgrims at her own home for years, she’s very keen to. “The transformation”, she says. “Sometimes you see them walking out and walking back, and when they come back, they’re different people!”

She then proudly pulls out the enormous key to the church opposite, which I’m delighted to see she is as excited about as I am, and asks me if I would like to visit the church. We stand in the church for a while, admiring it’s painted interior, until I say we’d better go, as her family will be starving. She is more concerned that I get to the shop before it closes.

I pop to the shop for no other reason than to show my appreciation of it being there, then happily settle in to my home for the night, a whole bag of clean clothes underway.