A field somewhere east of Torigny-sur-Vire to Villers-Bocage

07:56 Awake! It’s a beautiful morning. The sun’s not quite up yet but the sky is clear and the basha’s external surface is dry¹. The temperature varied considerably overnight - very warm at first and then much colder later.

08:36 Ready to move on. Dry mornings help enormously. No breakfast, no sock wash.

08:44 Back on the road. Thinking of breakfast. I have my jacket, hat and gloves on. It’s a cold morning! I’ll make porridge breakfast as soon as I can. The landscape here is rolling farmland dotted with copses.

08:34 It’s entirely clouded over. The cars on this stretch of road move fast.

09:08 Stopping for breakfast on a grassy bank. Thinking twice though, because of the breeze. It’s light, but enough to blow the heat away from my pot. Moving on. Down in the lane would be more protected.

09:38 A decent bowl of chocolate porridge with tropical fruit and nuts consumed. Washing and packing away now. Weather still cool and overcast. There are sounds of heavy farm machinery on all sides except to the north-east of me.

10:02 Wandered up a laneway to see a wind turbine up close. They make the same metallic swishing that jets in flight make, but without the engine roar. You can hear the mechanism which feathers the blades operating periodically too. Fascinating tech. Why do people hate these so much? They’re beautiful. There’s barely a breath of wind at ground level and these beauties are generating power for free. The cloud is so low the tips of their blades disappear into the haze.

10:41 Hints of blue sky in the West. The sun is gleaming through the lightening cloud.

11:08 The sky is clearing and it’s warming up. Stopped at Le Perron to shed my jacket, have a drink of water and wash yesterday’s socks.

11:39 Porridge and gas are the two next most urgent purchases. And a stop for lunch, of course. I’m aiming for lunch in Calhagnes, so I’d better crack on. Feeling good, weather spectacular, landscape beautiful with sweeping views.

12:00 Stopping to take my trouser legs off.

12:04 Moving again.

12:33 Sun hat, sun cream. 20°C says the thermometer on my bag. It might be catching the sun, though.

13:07 Stopped in Sept Vents to refold the map. Next stop, Calhagnes. Hopefully it’s big enough to support a café or a boulangerie. Sept Vents has nothing. The day is clouding up again.

13:57 Calhagnes has a ‘Proxi’ supermarket but it’s closed now and reopens at half two. There’s nothing else in the village apart from a hairdressing salon. I’ve decided to wait on the sun on the green opposite the church because the next town, Villers-Bocage, is 9km away and I don’t think I have the energy for that. Then again I’m going well and I’ve got biscuits and chocolate.

14:12 Okay, cracking on. Three quarters of a packet of Petit Beurre biscuits and 100 grams of chocolate will see me through the next nine kilometres. Say 15:45. Sun’s out again. Two men are loudly cutting the grass in the village’s public green spaces with a ride-on and a strimmer which makes me not want to hang around. Awful sounds.

15:57 Villers-Bocage town limit. Quite a few stops for snaps on the way.

16:05 Main street. Looking for a place to eat, or shop. The town is a single main street with parallel residential streets, laid out up a long slope.

There is a youth hostel in Caen, “Domain Le Soir”, 68 rue Eustache Restait.

Sundown is 20:20 tonight; four hours away.

16:58 Sitting in a bar having a cup of tea. The hostel in Caen doesn’t open until June. I may see if I can find a cheap hotel if I get there while the tourist office is still open.

It’s turned a bit showery. There are options for wild camping along the GR221C² which runs nearby and possibly near the motorway. I’ll shop and get moving shortly.

Dinner: apple, fennel, bread. I have cheese, butter, olives.

I’ll need breakfast and maybe a snack - I should get to Caen’s suburbs by afternoon. More cheese, biscuits? Maybe crackers? It’s a question of what I can fit in the bag.

A shower just blew through. It’s still very grey. Gotta take the rough with the smooth!

17:40 Text exchange back and forth with Aisling. She’s booking me an AirBnB in Caen for less than €30/night for two nights. That’ll give me time to explore the town and find the sports shop to restock on gas.

I’ve reoriented the map in the sleeve in landscape mode because most of my movement from now on will be west to east. I can see my full day’s walk in one view. After Caen, I walk onto a new map!

Shower’s cleared. Time to go shopping and move on. €2.50 for a decent cuppa black tea.

€4.30 for (effectively) dinner - a salmon quiche and an onion quiche.

18:22 €5.64 for groceries: an apple, a fennel, 3 litres of water, bread, biscuits and cheese.

18:31 Getting oriented, heading out of town.

18:38 Oh look, a hotel. Room 2 is €41. It’s available. Oh shit I’m on a hotel room for the night. This isn’t tramping! I’ve calculated I could spend €40 on a hotel night for 160 nights and spend just over half of all the money I’ve saved.

20:45 Heading out for dinner, finally. Spent all this time rotating images, speaking to Aisling.

Everything was shut. Even the kebab place. They had closed the kitchen by ten to ten. The owner was prepared to fire up the kitchen for me but I actually wanted felafel, which they didn’t have.

Stayed up chatting to Aisling on Telegram until after 23:00 - she’s booked me into an AirBnB in Caen - fantastic. It was a rigmarole. Slept well, bed small but comfy and temperature just right.

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