pocket-full-of-seaglass

-Conques-

I wake up more tired than I was before I went to sleep, which, as far as sleeping goes, isn’t usually the order. The idea of a rest day is calling to me – more sleep, and time to sort myself out. I debate while I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, decide in favour. I go back to the reception, grab some bikkies and carbs for the road (all they have are crackers help), retrieve the baguette I ordered yesterday, and then I’m on my way.

Wait, huh? Feet before brain, I guess. I packed up, tent still covered in dew. And my clothes were cold. Man. I was thinking in tiny full stop sentences – no rambles to lift my spirits. I was a wet tissue on the sidewalk, all gross and sopping and sad. Jesus Christ get over yourself.

The upside was I saw a few familiar faces, namely the two who had been beside me in Golinhac; Green Tent Woman and Forclaz Girl. Well, technically Forclaz Girl was from even earlier, in Saint-Chérly, but I wasn’t going to nitpick,,

Oh, and here’s your daily Gross Thing; I opened a can of Coke expecting a fizz and some bubbles to kickstart my day and there was,,, no hiss? Seeing zero problem with this at all, I took the biggest gulp of what I can only describe as water and the hair that gets caught in the shower drain. I almost puked – but I spat it all out. Long, thick, somehow hairy strands of coke had solidified in this can that had been sitting here for god knows how many years. Gagging, I tried to calm myself down, not puke. [AN : It’s a day later, and every time I think about the sensation, I involuntarily double over and retch. I don’t think I’m ever going for Coke from a can again]

Less than two minutes from the campsite, I stop and earnestly consider turning back. I don’t want to walk, I feel like shit, etcetera etcetera etcetera. But the thought of leaving and coming back is so stupid to me that I keep going. 1.2km in, after the climb to Chapel Saint-Foy, I collapse on the rocks nearby. I’m out of water – I forgot to refill. For fucks sake. I’m really grumpy today, and my internal voice is being shockingly mean to everyone I meet.

Stubbornness can be a virtue if you move past the downsides; I push on. I continue to feel like shit for the rest of the day, but I don’t stop. For the first time, I purposefully take a variant trail. This one is technically the ‘historical’ route, so it doesn’t count – with the bonus that it’s 2.5km shorter. Whatever gets me to bed quickest.

I get lost a few times, which does not improve my mood, and miss the turn-off for the variant, which actively tanks it. Also; I’m out of food. Fully. There’s still so long to Decazeville, maybe I should just curl up by the side of the road with my sleeping bag and restart in the morning.

It’s all long endless roads and asphalt, and I don’t look up to see the views once. I’m on a mission, and I just need to get to rest and safety. After an eternity, I reach the first houses of,, Noailhac?

-Noailhac-

What the fuck? I didn’t miss the turn for the variant – so where was it? Choosing not to question the finer things, I duck into the tiny épicerie tacked onto the restuarant, spend so long deciding the lady tries to pick for me. I grab a juice apparently not for sale, but she hands me like a solid litre and a half of guava juice and goes “DRINK!” so I take her up on that. A tomato and two hard boiled eggs later, I’m walking out, €6 lighter. Not too bad.

The next kilometre and a half feels so easy it’s almost a joke – wander up to the chapel (another Saint Roch, they love this guy), pass the houses and abandoned farm gear. And then I’m there, and there’s benches, and in an instant I’m on the floor with my shoes off making a pesto egg sandwich and everything feels okay again.

There’s sun, and wind, and I tug my jumper on for warmth, my hair whipping into my eyes. Eat, drink your guava juice, breathe, take a fucking chill pill. Be glad the French know how to nail a boiled egg (rock solid, cooked for so long it’s grey on the outside), enjoy your food. Listen to the Beach Boys and tell yourself everything is going to be okay. There’s steps to the processes, don’t you know :]

After a little too long, I set off again, bolstered by the jumpy guitar. It’s another eight kilometres till La Combe, and between now and then even the guitar begins to drone, my mind just a solid chunk of empty space as I just try to make it.

-La Combe-

And I do make it, overjoyed because I think it’s Decazeville. It most definitely is not; but I’m in the final stretch. This final stretch is active nightmare for already-half-dead me, it’s slopes the enemy. My teenage angst is going buckwild, all whiny and whingy, “I hate this“, “How much longer“, “Are we there yet“. Sometimes I actively felt like I was babysitting some extraordinarily sad child.

I fill up some water, finally; my lack of drinking has probably also not helped my mood. Also, I’m sunburnt. I’m having a hot mess of a day, and I feel scattered and I cannot wait to get there. Except, naturally I do. A kilometre down the road there’s a little green park area for pilgrims to rest and I take them up on it. Shoes off, jumper on, phone on to charge; it’s nap time. Time to get out of my head and into,, bed?

I close my eyes to birds flitting in the blue, soft pillowy clouds meandering by. I open them an hour later to dark, uniform gray. Ohhh fuck. A quick check of the weather confirms the worst – it’s about to storm. I’m still two hours from the closest campsite, and I do not feel like sleeping in a room with other people tonight. I’m up, and gone. Fuck.

-Decazeville-

I barrel downhill towards Decazeville, finally clocking why all the pilgrims stopped weirdly early. They’d been smart and done the bare minimum: checked the weather. I pass a grandfather/granddaughter duo watching the clouds who are exceptionally adorable, but there’s no time to sweetly wander along thinking about making pasta with mine or any of the other cute thoughts I could have – it’s going to fucking rain.

In hindsight, this panic only half makes sense. Yes, I wanted to camp tonight, but I also totally could have just,, run by a gîte. And I did, in fact, several! But I was hell-bent on sleeping outside, campsite or no campsite so goddamn it we were going to find one. Oh yeah. Have I mentioned yet that Decazeville doesn’t have a campground?

Yeahhh the place is lovely, and has an incredible big old cemetery that takes up half a hill that I would love to explore, but no campground. Which means I reluctantly have to bid Decazeville goodbye barely ten minutes after I meet it. I’m insistent on beating the storm, even if it means powerwalking up another sharp little ascent back out of the valley. It’s getting windy, and I can smell rain, but it can’t catch me, it won’t.

When the ground levels out a little, I meet someone. A very small someone. A stick-sized someone – though, no, that’s too generous. He’s like,, y’know when you cook fettuccine? How if you forget to put a little oil in the water before you add the pasta in, they’ll clump together in little ropes, five thick or so? He’s like that with teeth.

I’d seen another whipsnake a few days ago, coming out of Esyprec, but that one had fled into the bushes the second it heard my footsteps. Not this guy. He was brave, rearing up and leaping at me. Or, trying to (again, fettuccine sized). He was so small he couldn’t even reach the hem of my pants, the chances of him getting his teeth into my leg was Buckley’s to none. Cute.

He was just in the middle of the road though, which I didn’t like, so I got myself a stick and shooed him off, to much grouchy attempted bites from him. I admired his courage; I was like a million of him and he still just kept striking. He reminded me of a yappy little dog, just impossible to shut up. Gradually, he moped off, hissing at me from ~somewhere~ in the grass as I left.

And just in time too, because we’re in for a treat : another Chapel Saint Roch. Who is this guy, and why have they named every chapel in France after him? According to a quick Google – not while actively outrunning the storm, but after – our boy Rochy was the patron saint of dogs, the falsely accused and the.,,, invalids? “He was born into money, but didn’t seem to be a fan”, what a guy.

Story goes he’s out in Italy, catches the plague (bummer), gets exiled and is saved by a dog who brings him bread every day, devotes his life to caring for the sick, returns to France and the uncle he grew up with but uh oh! Unc no longer recognises him so chucks him in prison for five years till he dies. Only problem; Rochy has got a massive birthmark that Very Clearly Identifies him – and they only realise who he is once he’s dead. Question; would showing that not be your first port of call? Maybe to be a Saint you have to be lacking a little in the mental department, who knows.

Anyway, oppsite the chapel is a small, very cosy-looking gîte, filled with happy pilgrims, and naturally you speed past it too quick to think about the benefits of a bed. Why would you, when your cheapo replacement beckons, with it’s strange tarif tax and 98% chance of Weird neighbouring motorhomes?

A quick dip in the road, a decaying house with bright, recently painted sky-blue shutters, and a right turn (you definitely didn’t have to check that by writing something in the air, you for sure know your lefts and rights, mhmm, yeahyeahyeah), and the descent into Livinhac le Haut begins. It’s not rough, just a little nerve-wracking, what with the grumbling thunder starting from behind you. But, oddly enough, my brain quiets. Or, rather, thinks of something new. It sorta comes out of nowhere, but suddenly I’m thinking about the cake I baked my brother for some birthday or the other.

It had fake grass made of green-food-dye-dyed-shredded-coconut (an idea I completely stole from my mother and her incredible birthday-cake-making skills) and goals made of chocolate fingers and white chocolate. I melted it down, piped it into netting, froze it. I didn’t know you had to temper it though, and so they just sort of sagged in the middle and eventually caved in on themselves. It had little soccer guys and I tried to ‘paint’ the balls (white fondant spheres) with black food dye, but it bled everywhere, and I had forgotten what hexagons looked like anyway.

I don’t know if we have any photos of that cake. I don’t remember his reaction. I don’t know why I’m thinking about that cake. Somewhere, there’s a video of a younger me dressed as an angel crying at a birthday party that isn’t my own. I don’t remember why I was crying. I don’t remember who was filming. I don’t remember whose birthday it is. Sometimes, I get these little flashes of memories that feel so separated from me I forget they’re mine.

-Livinhac le Haut-

I’m still getting flashes when I reach the bottom of the hill – always in third person – and get my first view of the town. Separated from me by the Lot, which, I take it back, is beautiful. Wide and flowing and gray, church bright white against it. And the sun is out, and it’s warm, and the campsite is straight down the road to the left. And as you walk, a crisp, fresh smell will greet you; wild mint. It grows everywhere, over the sides of the hill and the sides of the highway and the sides of the river and there’s so many sides and so much mint and you smell great for the first time in a while.

I walk through the gates of the campground, head to the reception which is,, dark? Oh no. The fucking French. The sign says they close at 6.00pm now, not 7.00pm like it is online – but I’m so early? I check my phone. 6.04pm. Are you kidding? That has to be the most efficient clock-out process ever holy shit. And then, as I’m dialling the number for out-of-hours reception, one last person comes out. Thank fuck.

She gets me sorted, gives me pick of a few different spots, takes my €10.50 and vanishes. Efficient didn’t come close. Just glad to be safe from the weather, I make my way to my pitch, where a man far too close to nudity is sitting in the middle of the grass seemingly doing,, nothing. Mmm okay maybe I take the one a few down instead. It’s warm, and light, and sunny, but the blackness is fast approaching, so I don’t dawdle tonight.

I’m set up within a few minutes, everything inside – but it doesn’t break. Even after waiting ten minutes, nothing. So I dip, take my clothes and go to shower. And, I don’t mean to brag? But this campsite had handles on their showers, not a button. The water stayed on. And it was hot. Like, I-had-to-turn-the-temperature-down-for-the-first-time-in-my-short-history-of-French-campsites hot. It was a herculean effort to turn the water off, I can tell you that much. I could’ve single-handedly doubled the drought, but I didn’t. You’re welcome, France <33

In comparison to the perfect heat of the water, the air was a knife. Shaking, I got changed, hobbled back outside. It still hadn’t broke, even after all my time in the bathroom. If it never broke I’d be so upset – I needed an electric boost. By the time I’ve had dinner and gotten ready for bed, it looks like no luck. ‘Fuck, I think, maybe I should’ve just saved my money and went for a bench‘.

And then it b r e a k s.

I’ve never been more glad with a decision in my life, because this time, when the storm arrives, it doesn’t tease, doesn’t wind up; it’s violent. The lightning is bright white, sizzles when it hits the ground, the powerlines, the trees. It leaves red air everywhere, hair standing on end. Electricity cuts; the wind barrages my tent so hard all but three of my (fully hammered) pegs fly loose. My tent is almost bent in half, and I’m genuinely worried it’ll snap. The thunder is ear-splitting, the press-your-palms-to-your-ears kind, the kind that shakes the floor. I feel like I’m inside the storm. It’s fucking awesome.

I lay and wait, count the seconds between thunderclaps till they converge and everything is noise and light and rain. I’m cold, but I’m overheating. I love storms, and I feel awful. It’s an odd clash; it’s back to constant internal yelling, and I’m exhausted. I’ve got so many maybe’s drifting around, and I just need them to stop. Or, one can stay. Maybe a rest day soon would be good.

---

Day 28 – September 17th

Conques to Livinhac le Haut

22.2km

~ 229.3km total

€20.05

~ €242.98 total

(594.0km combined)

(€872.21 combined)