A real people day today, as we began on our now familiar unused rail track high above the surrounding fields, exquisite in its appearance and offering shade if needed. So far no, as the shade high above is coming in a different form.
A mob of mostly male joggers first came into sight as I held my imminent photo of Corrie in abeyance in order to capture them as well. Seeing what was happening, I heard a shout (as you would in the Louvre), ‘no photo’. I thought I would test this challenge out and called back ‘yes photo’ a few times until they started laughing and shouting. So amid the apparent frivolities I clicked. The last runner then stole my poles, and ran with them a few steps using them quite well, with me calling out ‘gendarmerie’. He laughed, returned them and bounced off with the rest.
Then it was some walkers and a dog, followed by some joggers. I probably don’t need to tell you as you would have googled about the French government lessening the perks given to its employees and causing strikes. This probably means that these previous rail lines that our friends and us are using are more productive than French rail.
Like yesterday it was the village ‘feel’ and the rolling (was flat) farmed ‘fields’, that made our farmers weather prediction less of a challenge – yes he said it would rain all day. It was now becoming eerily isolated as we were entering a village free, people scarce, and sign not territory, making us a little concerned. It was late, a Sunday (a nothing anywhere day) and we had taken an alternate route (ancient original but with poor signage).
We had already covered more kms than normal and it was getting late, so I held my stick up to show Corrie a path clue. At the same time a car started reversing towards us and I thought they must have seen my raised pole as a distress call. So I went up to the car and he was shocked to see me there. It turned out that they were lost also and were heading up a road that was ours but we did not know about. They found out on their GPS that we were a long way from home (for cars) and offered us a lift as they were lost anyway.
Their 2 young daughters squeezed together while we squeezed them closer making it quite hard for them to play on their smart phones. While we never ask for lifts, we accept the offer and this was a time of acceptance. A lovely chat ensued between mum and dad and us while the kids played with their chats on the phones, but became more chatty with us when I told them my wife also liked ‘chats’ as well as ‘chiens’.
Photos were taken, ours for the blog and theirs for Facebook as they dropped us right outside the door of our new home, a lovely Auberge farmhouse with huge loft room (encore), a delicious supper and French wine. We would never have otherwise found it – thank you Laurence, François and kids!.