From a field on the edge of the forest near Void to an AirBnB in Toul

Monday

07:09: Sitting up. Boy that was tough. The ground was hard and uneven. I really need to replace my mat. It got punctured during the shakedown walk, so is little better than a plain roll-up mat.

There were no hog noises during the night.

Shortly after I got into bed, a few light showers rolled through and then it started raining in earnest for most of the night. It stopped sometime before dawn. It’s overcast and cool, but the overcast is high and doesn’t look threatening.

09:15: Breakfast, broke camp, walking away.

09:49: Rain. Jacket on.

10:18: Cleared for now. I’ve been following the canal since 10:10¹.

10:38: Shit, I’ve realised I ought to be on the other side of the canal. I have to backtrack nearly an hour. Oh well. Today’s destination is Toul, which makes it a comparatively short day. Still, I could have done without adding an extra two hours to the walk today. I contemplated climbing up onto the motorway bridge but it’s just too dangerous an option. OK, back to town.

10:48: Actually, it’s marginally shorter to keep going and add a detour ahead, rather than doubling back. Saves me a kilometre.

11:22: Close to the spot where I begin to converge on the correct path again. Stopping for elevenses.

11:46: I needed that. Half a buttered Carrefour baguette with most of the cheese, followed by the rest of the surprisingly shit Lidl half-coated biscuits.

It’s still chilly — the thermometer on my bag registers just 10 degrees C. There’s a breeze and the sky is 100% packed with cumulus at 500 metres or less. I see no rain imminent. Packing up and moving on.

12:21: Back on track finally. There was another shower.

12:36: I think I’m sleep deprived. I keep making small but important map reading mistakes today. It’s only by double-checking on the GPS that I spot the errors.

13:42: Pagny-sur-Meuse.

13:50: Leaving Pagny-sur-Meuse.

14:03: Just as another shower was about to roll through, I found an American-style diner in a French style, all meat and burgers, but the buffet stand has escargots. I’m tucking into a plate of salad, some of the ingredients of which I haven’t eaten for a week or more. Simple and tasty.

14:59: €18:50 for a small plate of veg and a cup of tea. Most expensive plate of salad I’ve ever bought, I think.

15:37 Lay St. Remy.

15:46: Exiting Lay St. Remy.

16:02: Foug.

16:18: Out the other side of Foug.

16:40: Ecrouves.

16:48: Stopped to put on Factor 50 and insert earplugs.

18:29: Settled into my AirBnB with a lovely hostess and an airy but strangely hollow concrete house dating from the 1960s. I’m going to get in the shower. My hostess has offered to wash all my stuff.

22:54: Engaging chat with Letitia, who’s renting a room here and working as a translator for a business in a village 20km away. She’s delighted by languages and people and has lived abroad in London and Freiburg. She’s from Chaumont-en-Vexin but has a hankering for life in bigger cities.

While we chatted in the kitchen, I assembled mustard mackerel on fried shallots and ginger with a vegetable stock couscous followed up by two mandarins supplied by my hostess. My food bag haas been getting a bit ridiculous so it’s good to strip it back to basics.

I’m looking forward to the walk tomorrow even though my legs are tired and the forecast is for rain. It’s a moderate one, about 25km, though with detours it may add up to 30km.

My hostess has washed all my dirty clothes so my room is draped with almost-dry garments. I’ll be amazed if any of them aren’t dry by morning. That technical stuff dries very quickly.

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