It was a great disappointment that no-one was out and about when we set off for Lauzerte this morning. We had pulled shut the gite door with is ancient hand knocker, completed a tour of the town in five minutes, and now we were off and away. We had a long walk ahead of us, and we had finally realised that an early start for a pilgrim was a good one.
We were in farming districts with horses, ploughed fields, dams and stone farm houses creating pleasant views.
Soon we were climbing up through forests on a path that may once have been wide enough to be the road connecting villages, at a time when the car was not yet dreamed of. We were still in the land of long ago shepherds who sheltered in round stone huts. We met no-one, and could have been walking centuries ago.
There is no timber structure holding up the stone rooves of these huts. The picture below shows the inside of one, looking at the roof.
Once back on the road again, we failed to notice a Chemin sign saying to turn left, and we sailed on, eventually realising that there had been no signs for a while. We retraced out steps, luckily not too far, and were amazed to see that the signs had been obvious and clear. Had our minds been on higher things? No, they had been blank and we just hadn’t looked carefully.The Chapel of St Jean Le Froid (St John the Cold) was simple and had a feeling of peace and calm. A sign said to leave the chapel clean, which was unusual, and suggested that it might be used by sheltering pilgrims on occasion. Many books had been written in by pilgrims over the years, and I added a message to the current book. A pair of walking boots had been left under the table – a gift for a walker in need? in memory of a walker? – we didn’t know. The windows were very simple and clear. Close by, a miraculous spring poured forth. People used to gather here at the time of the summer solstice before the sun rose. According to legend the spring poured forth freely at exactly midnight, even in times of drought. The waters were believed to be efficacious for eye afflictions and rheumatism.
As we passed the Farm of St John, we started on an arduous and not very pleasant aspect of today’s walk. The stony brown and red paddocks of other days had been replaced by heavy clay soil, sticky and impossible to avoid accumulating in big clods on our shoes as we walked up farm tracks. Islands of grass would provide relief but as soon as we scraped the clay off each shoe, we were accumulating more. Worst of all were the parts where the clay weighing on our shoes coincided with a steep uphill section, making me think of the devil at the Valentre Bridge at Cahors, and wondering whether he hadn’t had a hand in the route design. I had never thought that I would be glad to see a section of asphalt, but today I was.We seemed to be following a particularly dangerous length of major road, and we were, having missed the Chemin sign, but since we were heading to the village of Montcuq anyway, we chose to walk on.
From afar we could see an ancient tower on the hill. Originally part of the castle and fortifications complex, it is all that is now left. We climbed up the steep hill to it. The tower was a substantial building with reconstruction workers and a crane busily ensuring its future.
An old man seemed to be living in a kind of wood shed, where he was entertaining some cronies in an area open to the street. His home brought to mind that fact that many villages we have walked through seem to be having a resurgence in popularity, with houses being bought up and restored, and with new enterprises starting to serve the increased population, yet the cycle of renewal means that some old timers live as they always did, in places that are still run down and very interesting.Down the hill again, we bought the most delicious grain bread, an apple turnover and a fruit spiral in an artisan bakery and some cheese and fruit at the small supermarket. A very friendly lady assisted us at the post office, where I had to warm up my hands before I could write on a baby card for little Hugo Higgins, who had just arrived, back in Australia. The hours of closure in villages are so long in the middle of the day and yet still at a reasonably normal hour at the end of the day that we have rarely had a chance to post anything.
After that we were on our way again, in particularly pretty country with, at the top of every crest, the most beautiful view of undulating valleys awaiting us.
It seemed to be the parsnip capital of France. For every leaf strewn lane in the woods we seemed to pay the penance of trudging along shoe clogging soggy clay farm track. For every struggle up a narrow rocky and eroded uphill path, a slope into a valley awaited us. The huge clods of earth in the ploughed paddocks defied any thought that a crop could be planted in them as they were, and yet we could not work out how it would be possible to break up such stickiness. We were later to learn that when the ground freezes heavy rollers are dragged over the clods and they break down into a fine tilth. As it was, whole hillsides shone silver with the sun reflecting off the wet sides of the newly turned clods.
It seemed a very long day; so long that when a village came in sight on top of a hill, I thought that it must be our destination. It was not, being Montlauzun, and not Lauzerte, but it looked enchanting perched on its hill and spurred us on. There are so many signs with distances on them in France, with many being to individual properties it seems, as well as to villages. It was a long way back that we had even seen the name Lauzerte and a tiny flame of doubt was creeping in. We were on the right track, but there were so many other places to be sign posted that, unless a town was within about three kilometres, there was no space to mention it. Up and over the Montlauzun hill we marched, sadly bypassing the town but enjoying seeing the topiary cross and the ancient farm buildings.
On the other side the ultimate in signage was a post that detailed the distance to a farm as being 0.1 kilometre up a drive where all was clear to see.
On and on we walked, with the miracle being that our legs just kept moving automatically. Sometimes I tuned in to their rhythm and other times I would be amazed that they had taken me a considerable distance with no input from me at all. We had ceased to notice our back packs long ago, and Keith’s Achilles tendon was no longer a problem. Occasionally a misplaced foot would give me a twinge in the right knee on a steep downhill, but on the whole a steady pace developed a kind of physical hypnosis. The soreness in the soles of Keith’s feet came and went randomly, but was not a major problem.A long steep incline took us between farm buildings on a dairy farm, where there was plenty of evidence on the ground that cows regularly crossed, and a sign to say that that was so. As we walked on and into a long lane with built up banks and fences and hedges on each side, making it like a cattle race, we were amused and then alarmed to read another sign which asked people to ‘Beware of dangerous bulls, thankyou for your understanding’. Through the gaps in the hedges we could see cows and ‘dangerous bulls’ grazing innocently in the fields. The bulls certainly were very big and could have done a lot of damage to a walker who did not ‘beware’ – but how? There was no escape from the lane, the dog bomb would be too small and the offer of some grass would be likely to be ignored. Was the understanding requested that of the gored walker or the bereaved parent, and did it absolve the bull owner of responsibility? We had a bit of fun thinking about it all, and luckily met no bovine creatures.
A very steep downward slope, where we needed to use out batons and where I held onto the fence as well, led to a gentle incline up into the woods. Just before we plunged into a leafy tunnel, we stopped for an apple break. I didn’t seem to be able to eat and walk, so multi-tasking had certainly dropped out of my repertoire. It was just as well. When we looked around, the most beautiful valley lay before us, with shadows from the sunshine enhancing the contours of the land. The forests and fields included every graduating autumn tone, terracotta roofed stone houses were dotted across the landscape, a dam reflected the sky and an enormous fig tree spread out its arms. It was a valley that could have inspired a painter, and a valley full of light that could have led to the birth of impressionism. It was a real thrill, like being given a gift. Although Keith took many photos of that special valley, none show it as it truly was today.
I had the feeling that I was being fed by the beauty that we were seeing all around us, and that that was an important thought to hold on to. I didn’t want to have a day any more when I would not have been outside with my eyes open, satisfying that appetite.
The last tunnel through the woods emerged at an area of recent development on the outskirts of Lauzerte. Keith commented how a metal clad mobile home stood out in stark contrast to the old stone houses and modern houses built to old designs with rendered surfaces.
Suddenly we were out of the forest and the fortified medieval city of Lauzerte shone on its hill top ahead of us. Since we had failed to read ahead in the book, it was a delightful surprise to both of us, and spurred us on to reach it.
A stop at the supermarket, where we were wished ‘Bon courage’ and ‘Bon marche,’ gave us more weight to carry, but the ingredients to cook a hot meal.The gite was on a little plateau, and was in the stable beside the farm house. They had been bought and restored from ruins by a warm and welcoming couple, Michel and Bernadette. We were ushered into a lounge room with a roaring open fire. Ornaments and books and a large dining table made it feel like home. Marie Laure, Bernadette’s sister, made us a cup of tea and fed us with biscuits. A computer with internet access, a printer and a photocopier were available for our use in the lounge room. So we were each in heaven, me with the books and Keith with the internet. Later when we met Michel, he offered to show us a part of the medieval city that is locked, but luckily he had a key. We decided that we would have a day of repose here, a day to catch up the blog, to rest our legs (not that they needed it) and above all to discover the old city on the hill above us.
Keith cooked up a storm while I typed – and how I longed to be the one chopping things up rather than thinking. Alternating between two countries for the blog is like writing two novels at once, with us as the characters who are not the same people in France as we were in Africa.
I finished the day by reading ‘Le Pelerin de Compostelle’, (The Pilgrim of Compostela), by Paulo Coelho. He had a strange and life changing experience when sleeping out in the woods along the Chemin. The sounds and dangers of the woods were getting at him and he was worried that he might die before morning from a physical condition that he had. Finally he fell asleep. He wrote in great detail of the dream he then had, in which he was alive but was thought to be dead, and his family and friends were burying him. He struggled to move or to speak but could not. All the things that he wanted to do in his life but had not done came into his mind. He was incredibly sad and felt that he had not lived his life but had rather moved through it and now it was over. Eventually he struggled out of death and into life, and awoke. Now he felt as if just being alive was the most wonderful gift, and that he had a chance to really live. He felt at peace and no longer afraid of the world around him.
Of course being in a toasty warm gite with no wolves or anything was not conducive to me having any revelations of importance, but in a way Paolo’s message could be a lesson for me and I was glad to have opened his book.
No comments:
Post a Comment