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

She calls out to the man on the street                                             He can see she’s  been crying,                                           She‘s got blisters on the soles of her feet,                                         She can’t walk but she’s trying   

Phil Collins – Another Day in Paradise

I limped into the village of Grand- Lemps shortly before midday. It had been raining solidly for the last 4 hours. My supposedly impermeable cagoule was proving as water resistant as a garden sieve and I was soaked to the bone. My boots were shipping water and my Sealskinz socks were completely sodden. I had developed a couple of blisters and all I had to look forward to for lunch was yet more shredded carrots and tinned mackerel. Why on earth was I putting myself through this misery? Did I have a deeply ingrained streak of masochism? Why wasn’t I having ‘a duvet day’ back home?

     

A few minutes later I wasn’t feeling much more cheerful. The wooden fork, I had bought the previous day to eat the carrots and tinned mackerel with, had disintegrated in my pocket. I’d been forced to eat the pickled cartots and mustard mackerel by hand!

I wandered around the centre of  Grand-Lemps in search of a caffeine boost. Two rather depressing looking bars were completely deserted. A chap in a kebab joint looked nonplussed when I enquired about a coffee. I’d almost decided to cut my losses and head off when I passed a shop and a voice rang out from within “Are you looking for something?”

“Do you do coffee?” I enquired. “Of course!” came the reply. I slipped off my backpack, slumped into a chair and ordered a double expresso.

There was nobody else in the café, so I started chatting to the young proprietess. She had only opened the business in April and despite the lousy weather, was upbeat about the future. It was clean, there was a well stocked array of local produce on sale and the coffee was excellent.

The coffee was so good that I ordered another and quickly polished that one off as well. As I set off to go, the rain had eased off, the caffeine was coursing through my system and I could hear Phil Collins on the café audio system singing ‘Another Day in Paradise”. Things were looking up!

The previous night’s stay in Charavines with Joël and Dorothée had been superb.

Before supper Joël had showed me around his workshop where he manufactured precision parts for conglomerates like Schneider. He’d set up his own business in his garage 18 years ago and had slowly expanded into the adjoining rooms. It was mind boggling to think that he was supplying some of the largest companies in Europe with precision parts. “They come to me with a problem and my challenge is to solve it for them” he told me with a smile.

Over supper, Joël chatted about his plans for retirement later this year. A keen cyclist, he planned to start ‘bare foot’ long distance walking. He had been inspired by one his elder brothers, who had ridden and walked up the highest points in each French department – including Mont Blanc. Joël wanted not only to follow in his footsteps but to go one better!

After we had finished supper which included some delicious tomatoes grown by a neighbour, Joël cracked open a bottle of wine, asked me if I was up for a game and promptly uncovered a huge board which was placed on the dining room table. It was time for a game of Crokinole!

For those of you not familiar with the game, it originates from Quebec. Each player has 12 pucks which they have to flick from the side of the board into the centre, in order to score points. You can hit your opponent’s pucks out of play. At the end of flicking 12 pucks, points are counted up snd a winner is declared. Call it beginner’s luck (or more likely that Joël and Dorothée had tacitly agreed before hand) but I ended up as the winner!

The beach at Charavines was completely deserted as I headed off this morning under leaden skies and a steady drizzle. The Indian summer had clearly been put on hold.

A few hundred metres down the road I noticed a couple of intrepid swimmers out for a dip, defying the weather and the signs proscribing any such activity. I wasn’t tempted to follow suit!

Apart from my pit-stop in Grands-Lemps at midday, pretty much the only other moment of excitement was an encounter with 3 other pilgrims heading in the same direction as me.

I attempted to strike up conversation with the lady who was in the vanguard of the trio. She only spoke German, was from Austria and appeared to be struggling with a foot problem.

 

Three hours later I encountered her again, banging furiously on a door in the village of Le Frette. It was only 2pm so I suggested, in my dodgy distantly remembered A level German, that she try and ring the host family. Sadly there was no response. I tried to explain the various reasons why they might not be at home at 2pm on a Thursday afternoon, but my thoughts seemed to fall on deaf ears. I could see that I might be stuck with the hapless Austrian pilgrim for hours on end if I took up her offer to look around the church and keep her company until her host family arrived. It was time to cut my losses and head on to my destination for the day –  Ornacieux-Balbins.

I finally made it to my destination at 5.30pm and tracked down my host for the night – Marie-Christine. With a cheery smile she cracked open a bottle of beer for me and announced that Michel Barnier (the erstwhile EU chief negotiator for Brexit) had just been chosen as the new French prime minister! It didn’t really matter to me any more. Brexit was a done deal, there was a hot bath available and an evening of interesting conversation with Marie-Christine lay ahead.

As I headed up for a bath, I couldn’t help humming the refrain to the Phil Colllins song I had heard in the café at lunchtime. Despite the morning rain, all in all, it had been another day in paradise!