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07:05 A grey, damp, misty day. I’m really glad I’m under bricks and mortar for this one.
07:07 Still quite dehydrated. It’s easy to forget to drink in the rain. I drank two litres of water yesterday evening but clearly I need more. Gonna have a drink and a quick shower and then get breakfast and wash my clothes.
07:44 Washed and dressed, ready to face the day! First, I need a bag!
08:04 Sitting in a café, about to have buttered bread for breakfast. Eggs for breakfast doesn’t seem to be a thing here. I definitely need some refuelling. I could sit here all day. I probably will! €4.50 for a length of bread, butter jam and tea.
I need to be pacing my days so that I make my own breakfast and then arrive in a town large enough to support a restaurant and eat my main meal of the day here, as well as shop for a lighter dinner when I reach camp. This’ll all become less of a race against time as the days lengthen and I have more time in the evenings before sunset.
08:29 Refuelled and feeling less mentally crowded. It’s amazing the anxiety this engenders. I’m loving listening to the warm hubbub in the café. Onwards!
08:38 At the laverie. You have to buy your own washing powder.1 Off to Carrefour.
09:02 Bought washing powder
| (just under half a kilo) for | €1.69 |
| “Bag for life” | €0.15 |
| 25 ten-litre plastic bags | €1.72 |
| €3.56 |
Waterproof pens (2): €5.20
Considering the price/weight/daily utility of the washing powder, it makes sense to abandon it after a single use.
Washes are very quick - 26 minutes or so. I’ll hang the stuff in the hotel room and head back out to while away some time in a café.
09:13 Stop being so fearful: I just need to do everything once. People are generally well-meaning.
09:28:24 Rain-spattered notes (which I notice have been redacted slightly on this blog.)
09:54 Back in the hotel, washing hung out to dry. I’m going to have a croissant and an apple turnover by the window. The day is brightening. I’d like to see a weather forecast.
10:33:34 
10:33:48 
10:37:42 
10:38:27
10:46 Back in the café on the main square. I have my phone, camera, card reader, maps, notebooks, French phrasebook and a bag of two apples and eight mandarins. I feel like I’m getting a handle on small town life.
10:52 Writing postcards.
12:28 Lunch (plat du jour): spaghetti, light brown sauce, a wide rasher. Unremarkable.
12:20:00
16:48 Posted the postcards. I missed the afternoon collection at 15:00. I’m now in Café Bar Le Gare, which is a kip. I’m the only customer and the place smells of urine and bleach. Outdoors is grim and cold. The sun has hardly peeped through the featureless overcast all day.
17:06 Decent cup of tea here, but the environment is too horrible. I’m off. Back to to hotel for a bit.
18:14 Finished transferring photos to my phone and rotating them2. Now I’m going to fix the tears in my glove and sun hat. Eventually I’ll plan my trip to Utah Beach tomorrow 3.
19:20 Sitting down in a pizzeria/bistrot. They have egg dishes! And salads! It’s nice to be moving about the town at dusk; normally I’m in my sleeping bag at this time.
19:28 Dinner of Salade Niçoise (eggs, tomatoes, olives, tuna, anchovies, salad leaves) and delicious slim oily chips followed by a crepe with blueberries (mûre). €20.80 with tip.
23:28 Getting ready for bed. Burst of Twitter and blog posting.
No you don’t; I’d missed step 11 of the instructions: “buy a sachet of washing powder - €1.00”.↩
My little Nikon compact takes some amount of abuse, but it’s not able to accurately write orientation data to portrait format snaps, so I end up having to do it. The camera’s probably been dropped onto tiles one time too many.↩
I never made it back to the coast.↩
