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I first woke at 07:40 but didn’t get out of bed until an hour later. My calves and feet are a bit sensitive today. I’d love to spend a bit of time exploring this town. Likewise with Caen I didn’t give it its due.
09:34 No hot shower for me. The water is just above “cold”. I’d rather be smelly than subject myself to hypothermia.
10:45 Done - bag packed, porridge breakfast cooked in my room. I’m going to explore the town for an hour or two and maybe do some shopping.
11:02 Out on the street in the small Carrefour. The nearest big one is Caen. I’ll explore the town centre instead. The guy at reception is looking after my rucksack.
11:14 It’s still chilly in the shade outside. I’m in a near-deserted café having an English Breakfast tea and refolding the map.
I’ve crossed three rivers so far from Cherbourg: the Vire, the Orne and in the next day or two, the Risle, at Brionne. The next river after that is the Seine, which delimits the eastern edge of Normandy, I think. Oh, that cup of tea is good. I think I’ll have lunch in the town and then crack on. The next stretch to Brionne is probably a day and a half with no villages to speak of between here and there - certainly none that’ll have a boulangerie, charcuterie or supermarket unless I detour to Thiberville.
12:08 The dish of the day in this café/restaurant is beef. I’ll find another place.
Dinner for tonight: bread and fruit; Breakfast: porridge; Lunch: bread and cheese; Dinner: chocolate and fruit and nut mix.
12:14 Let’s go and find lunch, then go shopping, collect the bag and hit the road.
€5.40 for two little pots of tea.
12:17:42
12:40 Sitting on the terrace in the sun in a large, quiet, open square outside an almost-vegetarian restaurant. Planning causes me anxiety. Executing gives me relief.
12:58 Warm bland veggies in my belly. I’d have preferred them to have shown more evidence of having been roasted. Interesting nonetheless and the biggest plate of veg I’ve had since leaving Dublin. Spinach, butternut squash, aubergine, courgette, some kind of carrot paste with coconut milk. Mushroom soup on the side.
13:06:06
13:12 Most stuff is still closed on Mondays. French towns have a permanent sleepy air about them. The bookshop is closed today, for example. I’ve belatedly found an Indian restaurant. I’d have liked that for lunch to fuel me through the afternoon.
13:14:50
13:28 €2.05 for a dense custard and fruit tart; €1.05 for two apples and a shallot. I’m about to have a peek inside a cathedral. I’m drawn to stay in the town, but with nowhere to lay my head tonight, I’m drawn to move on. I have to reconcile that. Rough sleeping in towns is a bit of a stretch yet even though these small towns feel very safe - especially as the streets are effectively empty after nine o’clock in the evening.
13:36 The cathedral is completely closed up. The only accessible door is locked, the main staircase up to the grand entrance under the tower is blocked by planters containing dried-out grasses.
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14:06 A clutch pencil for €0.85.
14:12 €4.36 for 1.5 litres of water (21c), Emmenthal 200g (€1.99), 3 litre ziplock bags (€2.16).
Back to the hotel and hit the road.
14:30 Packed. I’m about to walk North and then track East along a river valley. I hope there are camping options to be had. I’m nervous.
14:43 Took a detour on the way out of town to check out the camping municipal - as much to get informed about the camping network as potentially stay another night for cheap and figure out the camping conventions.
14:48 Lovely five-minute chat with a lady in which I was able to hold my own reasonably well - where have you come from, how long does it take, you’re very skinny…
15:14:58
15:15 Arrived at the camping municipal. €11.85 a night. They don’t have maps of the rest of the camping municipal network, but I’m going to hang out in the sun for the day and read a book.
15:18:14
15:45 Trying to figure out where the sun is going to rise so I get maximum dew-drying potential on the basha. I’m also going to experiment with some alternative setups.
16:43 Some very enjoyable faffage setting up the basha in an open-to-the-front, closed-to-the-back lean-to arrangement. Seems risky if the wind changes but spacious inside. I also had a lovely text message back-and-forth with Aisling.
17:45 Ate the rustic baguette with sliced Emmenthal without much relish. I’d have preferred a bowl of vegetable soup. I’m enjoying sitting in the sun here on the campsite. I’ve decided not to head back into town although I could - and instead I’m sitting at a wooden picnic trestle table reading Geoff Nicholson’s “Lost Art of Walking” on my e-reader - and still experiencing pangs of anxiety about not moving. I could be back in the city centre in half an hour for an Indian meal…
17:57 Under the basha, where I’m now getting the evening sun, eating sablé biscuits with dark chocolate. Thinking about brewing a pot of tea.
Find the full text of Werner Herzog’s “Minnesota Declaration” in which he states “tourism is sin and travel on foot virtue”.
18:42 Sitting on the grass facing the lowering sun reading my book, feeling a bit lonely and massaging my feet. I’m glad I’ve given myself the afternoon off. Yesterday was a long day (the longest so far, I think - 36kms) and I can feel that the muscles in my feet are sore.
I’m listening to synchronised pigeons: “flah-too-bloop, flah-too-bloop”. There’s no wi-fi here; it’s a relief. If there was, I know I’d feel compelled to upload pictures and participate on Twitter. As it is, I’m alone with my thoughts and my books in a virtually deserted campsite on a beautiful sunny, calm day: I feel becalmed. I will be glad to get moving again tomorrow. I won’t have to worry about finding a campsite in the river valley as I’ll have traversed that by the afternoon. Where will I be sleeping tomorrow night? I still find that by far the hardest question to be equanamous about not having an answer to until the moment that I have the basha set up and my bedding laid out. I guess I need to be discovered in a field by a farmer in order to put to rest all of the “discovery” scenarios I find it hard to avoid playing in my head. Being discovered by that brown retriever yesterday had me thoroughly discombobulated. It may well be that I could have set up camp with the dog energetically swerving, sniffing and sprinting around me. I’ll never know.
19:27 On a walking day, I’d be casting around for a place to pitch up now. The sun is getting low. It’s about to disappear behind the roof of the building opposite. I’ve just heard (I think) the first train running on the track down in the valley between here and my original route due North out of Lisieux.
Even sitting in the sun, it’s surprising how cool it is. I think I’ll be in bed early to make an early start tomorrow. Hope the weather is decent tomorrow morning.
20:04 I’ve rearranged the basha in my traditional pitched-roof setup - low at the foot end and high at the head end.
I very much enjoy being under the basha in a safe environment like a campsite.
20:18 OK, unfurling my sleeping bag and bivvy - time for bed. What a lovely shanthi day, seasoned with low-level anxieties about not making progress eastwards. This is not a physical game, it’s a psychological one. Craving and aversion, craving and aversion.
