A lazy walk through a lazy village (or better still, a laid back one), with a tiny and falling population, we had a smorgasbord of PdB houses. A chance now to take in more sunsets, visit the donkeys and white cattle and far off views beyond the bevy of buttercups. After dark (now 10.00) the church was lit up and the war memorial before it was glowing white, blue and red.
Next door Chantel welcomed us into her lovely home for breakfast. She spoke very good English so it was a good chance to learn about her ‘shop free’ village. She told us that the Pans de Bois church that we look onto happens to be the largest wooden church in the world, so we’re breaking new ground here. Running a museum in another life convinced us that she would be well informed.
“There are also three hundred bird species in this area” and it was no wonder, with a lack of noise and air pollution and an abundance of lakes. Walking through a large dense forest with swamps, we could hear many of them, the sounds of hunter gunfire not seeming to bother them. I imagine they would therefore be shooting wild boar, hare or deers.
Chantel went on to tell us there was a great increase in b&bs, surprising for us given the problems we were having, but I guess it changes from village to village. She is a walker like us but prefers to walk in more unusual places like the deserts of Africa.
Our French fellow pilgrim who shared our kitchen but not our slower pace was off early so he could cover more kilometres in his limited schedule to get to Rome. After our host gave us some lunch (including our breakfast eggs, the first we had seen in France) we soon followed.
It was a forest most of the way, and the swamps throughout were evidence of the extensive flooding rains of March (Chantel had said), that have built up the water table and thus not allowing the water to more easily evaporate. It possibly explains the sometimes overwhelming number of mosquitoes that sometimes prevent us from accessing rarely needed shade.
Days before, the look of the forest had been damaged by the rough cutting down of trees for firewood. Today they seem like small havens as hand picked trees have been left and wood neatly bundled for delivery. Out into the open buttercup fields and into our new PdB village where there is a mixture of shops that have been forgotten, and those beginning a new life – as we are forgotten sitting outside on our banana chairs awaiting our new hosts.
OUR DIGS, with that church in background:
