I had a terrible night, tossing and turning and feeling hot and itchy. I was not fully awake much but neither was I comfortable asleep. When I emerged from my sleeping bag, there was not a rain drop to be seen, so we quickly dressed and packed. Unfortunately some mosquito had found me to be delicious at some stage and I had quite a few bites. At least I was no longer seeing every bite as a precursor to malaria, and we were still taking our malaria medication, as advised, anyway.
Claire had lent us a comprehensive accommodation book so we now knew that there would be gites open in many places. We might have to adjust our walking schedule to fit their availability though, as some close for winter at the end of October. After breakfast, we finalised our packing and off we went, glad to have no need of the rain gear. A large sign on the post office protested against proposals to close small branches.
Our first half hour was along a fairly flat road beside the fields. After quite a while, we realised that we had not seen a red and white marker lately, so we had to retrace most of our steps until we noticed what was really obvious, a marker showing to turn right and head uphill. We should not have been talking and admiring the farms so much.
We had not gone far before we met a man with an empty mushroom basket. He was very chatty, lamenting that the heavy rains had played havoc with current mushrooms and that it may be too late in the season for this district anyway. He wished us well, after hearing our plans and our country of origin. We suspect that not many Australians make it to the very small villages, since we are treated as a novelty with always the comment, “You have come such a long way.”
Today proved that the phrase ‘La Belle 
The GR65 that we were following is a series of little lanes and pathways, leading across 
We enjoyed a chat with a farmer, who told us that he had dairy and beef cows, and that there was no future for the small man in milk production. He had only thirty milkers and sold to local producers of cheese and yoghurt. Like everyone else, he asked if we were English or German, and when we said we were Australian, the fact that we had come that far sent us up in his estimation.
A small ginger cat with a short tale came out from under the doorway at the Chapel of Guirande.
It came right up to us, and then led back towards the door. We followed it, for all the world in the way that we would have followed a human caretaker. It walked from one side of the building to the other, seeming to point out features, and finally stopped just before a triumphal arch that led into the choeur (French for choir, but maybe not that when used for architecture). We kept going, but had to back out again to gain a full impression of the frescoes on the walls. 
The cemetery beside the chapel was a blaze of colour and as well as floral tributes, there were stone ‘cards’ sitting on top of the graves with wording like ‘Our Roger’ and ‘My beloved brother’.
I had expected that the first week might be dominated by our bodies adjusting, and that the second week might be the one for having a great time, but truly, it was impossible not to feel how beautiful the world is as we walked along, seemingly on top of it, looking down into the valleys below. True, Keith was having trouble with his ankles due to his new shoes, and his Achilles tendon was giving him quite a bit of pain. We swapped packs so that he could have the lighter one, and that gave him some relief, as did walking very slowly. The heavier pack helped me to feel physically very much in the moment, as we plodded on until we reached our destination of Felzins.
We arrived at our gite, a sweet stone cottage, probably in a former barn, with a drop to the stream in the valley behind being only a few metres away. The hillside had been terraced with paths zigzagging down through gardens, and a steep goat run. We wound our way down, admiring the amount of work that must have gone into developing this steep slope into a lovely area. We saw the area covered in black plastic where the massive bright orange and golden gourds and pumpkins that were decoratively piled up at the gite entrance, had grown in the summer.
A large vegetable garden on the flat was no doubt watered by the stream. We paid our respects to a donkey as we wound our way back up to our one night home.
Our walk through the village was very brief, there not being very much village and Keith being in pain with his tendon. The church was closed, but on its door was the delightful evidence of bureaucracy being alive and well, and also of language usage being culturally based. A direct translation may seem abrupt, but is not so in the original language. The notice said, in effect, that the way things had been going would now cease, and everyone had to change to the new arrangements. It outlined the new car parking spots that were being created, giving the number in each location (a total of 33), and saying that they would be outlined in white. On no account were people to continue with the random parking of the past, and the spaces in front of the church were only to be used by official cars for weddings and funerals. It finished by the mayor seeming to take personal responsibility for the changes, which were made in everyone’s best interests. There had been a lot of new surfacing work done and we thought that it was disappointing to see that people had already driven on the newly planted and just emerging grass sections, leaving deep ruts, and showing that the notice was needed.
A new Mairie had been built, and the building that was probably the original one, taking took pride of place behind the war memorial and in front of the church, had ‘COIFFURE’ in large letters on its front.
Our attention was taken by the dogs from our gite, which had accompanied us, finding a piece of glass and commencing to chomp it up. They took turns so it must have been delicious and they must have been mad.
There were many notices pinned up about decisions that the council had made, about the coming service for Remembrance Day, and a list of all the vets in the near and far districts. Perhaps our gite owner would need this list when the dogs reacted to their snack. There was an interesting breakdown of voter figures for the previous national election. With only 291 of the 308 possible voters, voting, the President, Nicholas Sarkozy, had only received 83 votes, Segoline Royal 80, Francois Bayrou, 47 and Jean-Marie Le Pen, 22. Other votes were sprinkled between the other candidates.
Back in our cottage, we were alarmed to see that my ‘mosquito bites’ had grown and swollen up, and that some had a watery blister on top. Keith diagnosed chicken pox, but having had that twice before, I knew that it was not that, and so we started to worry. There were at least twelve enormous, hard red blotches, some with blisters on them that almost seemed to swell as we watched. It was just two weeks since we had left
When I woke after my nap, I had more blotches and the blister on my ear had burst. They now resembled the pictures of plague pustules that I had looked at in the museum in Arusha, except that they were not purple and black. Maybe that would be next.
Whatever happened, there was no doctor here and it was too late in the day to walk to Figeac. We ate our dinner, I blogged until late, and then went to bed. In bed, I couldn’t get warm and I couldn’t sleep. Something seemed wrong with my head, with a feeling of shaking really scaring me. After taking some panadols, and with a hot water bottle, I finally went off to sleep.
The sculpture on the war memorial at Livinhac
a story book style well in a small village
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