Being in Pibrac was a lot like being in Inverleigh. We were completely relaxed here and free to do whatever we pleased. Corine was working at home, preparing for meetings and sessions with students for the following week. We were researching our trip into Spain and I was trying to close the gap on our African days for the blog. Breakfast and lunch were leisurely affairs where we discussed all sorts of issues and talked about the past three weeks.
During the morning Corine walked with us up to Pibrac to the market. We met a pilgrim on the way, and we stopped to talk. It felt strange to be the general public now, and we had a new respect and understanding for her challenges.
Market stalls were set out between the Basilica St Germaine and the church, creating a visual feast and a warm atmosphere, as Corine and other shoppers greeted each other. We were buying ingredients for dinner, and especially for the lasagne that Keith is famous for. The man selling the cheese was sure that the French would beat the Australians in the rugby on the weekend, and since Corine had told us that the French had a hero playing for them, it seemed quite likely. He showed the crowd (all women), a picture of a naked man in chains and claimed that it was a picture of him. Everyone laughed at his joke. He was the master of repartee and crowd entertainment, and I am sure that everyone would come back to buy cheese and be entertained each week. He declared that if the Australians won the rugby, he would not be back the next week, but I thought that he said that he would appear wearing only his chain outfit. No wonder I laughed the most at his final comment. We tasted some cheeses and bought some.
Corine was carrying the basket that we brought her back from Tanzania, and we had a green bag, and by the end of our shopping, both were full. I was carrying the special apple dessert from a nearby region that Corine had bought. We met a friend of Corine’s, an ex-English teacher, who was selling bottles of walnut oil. After a quick stop at the supermarket to buy lasagne sheets, we walked back down the hill and across the fields home. Two more pilgrims were shopping in the market, so we had met more pilgrims in Pibrac than we had in any day of our own walk.
Food here is a real art, with regions having their specialities, and recipes being more enduring and respected than in Australia. There is also a very healthy way of eating, which divides a meal into courses and ensures that time and pleasure is spent on eating. The first course is usually a salad, a vegetable dish or a soup. Next follows some kind of a main dish and then a cheese platter, bread and yoghurts. Desert or fruit, or both follow.
The apple dessert had the regional alcohol in with the apples, and a fine pastry top that was pinched up into peaks and puffed in the oven.
I spent the afternoon remembering the last days in Tanzania and typing on, while Keith prepared his lasagne. He made enough for a second meal the next day, when Maёlla would be back. The time before she left for Kuala Lumpa and then continued on to Australia was only about a week, so she had lots to do.
We ourselves were thinking about our travels, about when we would return to Australia and about the need to book a plane back from Sydney. We would leave Casablanca on the 16th of January, lose a day on the trip due to time lines, and school would start for me on the 28th of January. My initial idea of a party in Melbourne when we returned did not seem wise when we considered all that would have to be done in our empty house before school started. In the end, some time at home to recover from the trip seemed the best option, and catching up with people would just have to wait.Once Michel arrived home, we ate and talked. Michel showed us a sheet which had a long poem that showed how ridiculous English spelling is, with the same combination of letters making lots of different sounds, and different letters creating the same sounds. It was most amusing to read, but highlighted the problematic nature of pronouncing and spelling English.
We tried to summarise our experiences on the Chemin. We had been away for nineteen days, walking 250 kilometres over twelve of them, and exploring towns or avoiding rain on the other seven. The changing colour of the leaves had marked our passage, with the mix of red, yellow and green moving to mostly orange and brown by the end. It had been a marvellous experience physically and in being exposed to the beauty of the French countryside and villages, which delighted us every day. We had done some thinking, and had acknowledged the simple comparisons of the Chemin to the journey of life, but we could not claim to have undergone any momentous revelations. We had relished the sense of being at peace and having uninterrupted time to think. It was certainly a period when the day we were in was the only day that we were aware of, and the time had gone so incredibly quickly that it was easy to imagine walking for three or four months. We were happy with how things had gone, but my social and spiritual aims had only been met in a very low key way. Next time we would walk when others were walking, but not when the stream of pilgrims took away the stretches of isolation which had thrown us on our inner resources and on the beauty of the world around us so much.
Before we packed our creancials (pilgrims’ passports), we admired all the stamps and signatures that we had collected for each night along the way. I shocked Keith when I signed the spot in the creancials for the last night in Auvillar, something that we had not thought to ask for when we were at the Mairie. We would start from there next time, but when that would be, we did not know.
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