Pibrac, France, Wednesday September 29th

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After breakfast this morning, Michel, who has just commenced some holidays, drove us to the forest, the Bois de Bouconne, where the three of us did a nine kilometre walk. Actually it was 8.8 kilometres, according to Michel’s GPS device, which we had with us. It is an excellent device, which tracked all our movements, including retracing of some steps and cutting across the forest off the tracks. Presumably there is some monitor that could have the information sent to it, which would enable lone walkers to have a backup if they got injured, and lost walkers to be found. Michel pointed out how, on mountain trips the fog can come down suddenly and it is impossible to know if you are close to a precipice or on the right track. So there are lots of safety and information uses for walkers, which I had never thought of.

We walked up to see the memorial to Forain Francois Didier, the Regional Chief of the Resistance, who was killed here by the Gestapo. My translation of the plaque is

‘Passers! On this ground the blood has never dried, from that which was perpetrated by the Gestapo, on the 27^th January 1944, after 44 days of torture. Stop for a minute.’

Members of the resistance, and others suspected of helping them, hid out in this forest, and it is sobering to think of the bravery and sacrifice that every decision must have required.

Our walk took us past a lake and through long stretches of trees, with the paths carpeted in leaves. Our major nature find was a giant slug, and Michel found two varieties of champignon, both a bit past their prime.The Cross of St Dominic somehow eluded us as we hot footed it to the tower that was once used for telegraphs, using the semaphore system invented by Claude Chappe in 1792. The system was based on angles on articulated arms, and had 45,000 codes. It was a great breakthrough because the system of towers, about 10 to 15 kilometres apart on the highest points, enabled a message to reach Paris from Toulouse in good weather in two hours, where previously a week of riding would have been required. The telegraphs were almost exclusively used for military purposes, so said the sign, and I wondered who had slipped something else through and what it had been about. Perhaps, ‘meet me at the café at 5’ or some such.

We were home at a respectable hour for lunch, which was a French speciality called raclette. Special cheese is melted in little pans at the table, on an electric griller. The cheese is then scraped out onto the top of boiled potatoes, and eaten with pickled onions, gherkins, and sausage if desired. It was one of my favourite meals, and I liked the way it would enable you to have an easy meal with lots of visitors.

After lunch, Keith and Michel went out to buy Keith some new shoes. The two tiny holes and the lack of tread could provide problems for him on the long walk, since even if it didn’t rain, the tracks were already wet and slippery. Our minds were on the walk, because tomorrow we would drive to Conques and on Friday we would start early in the morning. We tried to work out the absolute minimum of clothing for a cold and possibly wet two weeks, and envied those who walked at times when a couple of t-shirts, some underwear and a pair of shorts would suffice. Eventually we had packed, and had showers, and put all our dirty clothes in to wash so that they could dry here, awaiting our return.

At last Michel and Corine returned from Toulouse, where they had been picking up Mäella and Michel’s mother, Nicole. It was a pleasure to renew our acquaintance as we ate dinner. Holly, had contacted Mäella, and Joel had sent a welcoming email through us, so there was great excitement about her forthcoming trip. We had some fun with tongue twisters and the French ones are virtually impossible for us and put the ‘She sells sea shells’ one right out of the race for difficulty.

Finally we went off to bed, knowing that we had to make a fairly early start to reach Conques by lunch time, and unable to sleep for thinking about the next adventure that we were about to embark on.