Pilgrim's Progress – Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!

William Shakespeare – King Lear

It was hammering down when I woke up and I was in no hurry to depart Jacques and Sylvie’s.

The previous evening we had spent a good few hours chatting about everything under the sun: Jacques had been one of 15 children. He’d joined the parachute regiment when he was 18 and after leaving the army had set up a precision engineering business. After retiring in 2014 he had bought a house in Marols and begun hosting pilgrims with Sylvie on the Chemin de Cluny.

Amongst his favourite memories were a group of 6 Indian priests who had erected a flagpole in his garden and run an Indian flag up the mast to celebrate 70 years of Indian independence!

The previous evening Sylvie had cooked up a four course meal – soup, dumplings (quenelles), a dessert with star anise and cheese.

Over supper Jacques explained the sad demise of the pilgrim host families ( jacquaires) on the stretch of the Chemin de St Jacques between Le-Puy-en-Velay and St Jean Pied de Port. Local commercial enterprises had taken the host families to court for offering hospitality to pilgrims (and taking trade away from them) and had succeeded in closing them all down. Jacques was fearful that the same thing could happen to the Jacquaires on the Chemin de Cluny.

Jacques was in a surprisingly good mood over breakfast considering the fact that a fox had killed 4 of his chicken overnight.

With the rain hammering down on their sunroof, Sylvie did an improptu jig in tbe kitchen, breaking into a rendition of “I’m singing in the rain”.

I could see it was time to unwrap my secret weapon to combat antediluvian weather conditions – Sealskinz socks which prevent water ingress from permeable walking boots such as mine. It was a perfect day to put them through their paces!

With the rain plummetting down in stair rods, it was difficult to appreciate Marols or the next village I reached, Montarcher. With the sun shining, I’m sure they would both have been idyllic.

At 2pm Usson-de-Forez offered respite from the grisly weather. The local supermarket proved a disappointment – it had closed down recently but the day was saved by a bakery which served me a hot meat pie and a quiche. I was literally in seventh heaven despite the fact that the sign by the village pharmacy showed the temperature at just 11C!

Midway through the afternoon, just after the rain had abated, a band of menacing dark clouds appeared over the horizon and the heavens opened. Thunder claps were accompanied by hale stones which hurtled down for a good twenty minutes. It felt as though it could have been snowing!

When the hale storm finally abated and the sun emerged, tge mercury must have risen 10C turning the woods I was walking through into a steamy tropical rainforest!

At around 5.30pm I finally arrived at Chomelix (whose name derives not from a character in an Asterix book but from the latin chalmelis which means path of the waters) and made my way to my hosts house.

Serge and Martine Best had only been hosting for a couple of years. Serge’s family had lived in the village since the 12th century! He’d built much of the house himself and he shared it with his wife, four cats, two sheep (black sheep of the Velay) and a hen.

After an enjoyable supper with Serge and Martine which lasted the best part of 4 hours during which we delved into local village politics, Serge’s family and the grim outlook for the youth of today in the face of technology and ecological challenges, it was time to call it a day and head up to bed.

Serge had been able to offer me a hot bath before supper, followed up with a cold beer and a bottle of wine. My sealskinz socks had seen off the risk of my developing trench foot and the next day offered the prospect of a rain free day for the 35km walk to Le Puy-en-Velay. All things being well, by the end of tomorrow I would have covered 300km in 8 days without so much as a blister or a muscle twinge. All things being equal, despite the rain, things couldn’t have gone better!