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

The Royal Family are not like you and me. They live in houses so big that you can walk round all day and never need to meet your spouse. The Queen and Prince Philip have never shared a bedroom in their lives. They don’t even have breakfast together.

A.N.Wilson

I was woken up by a tweetle on my phone. It wasn’t the alarm clock but a whatsapp message from a friend. At 5.30am, it must be serious stuff I thought.

The message ran as follows:

Bring Meghan Back!

🇬🇧 Operation: Bring Meghan Back to Britain! 🇬🇧

The nation needs you.

We are launching an urgent fundraising campaign to raise enough money to persuade Meghan Markle to make the ultimate sacrifice: return to England.

Think of the possibilities:

The tabloids would have something to write about again.
The Royal Family would have something to talk about.
Piers Morgan might finally sleep peacefully.
And Britain could once again enjoy the spectacle of everyone arguing about Meghan.

Every donation counts. £1, £5, £10 — whatever you can spare.

Let’s bring Meghan home!

What an earth was my friend prattling on about? Had he finally taken leave of his senses? Was he reprising his role as the PR spokesman for the MRLP (Monster Raving Loony Party) or was he having ‘a Right Royal Laugh’?

It was only when I blearily logged onto the BBC website that I realised what all the fuss was about. Megxit had been reversed. Overnight Harry and Meg had dropped a bombshell – they were coming back to live in the UK. It was quite a start to the day!

The previous evening at La Fontaine had been a jolly affair. I was joined for supper by 7 people on a riding holiday across the Luberon. The two leaders of the group were French, the rest, from what I could make out, were from Luxemburg and Austria. Thankfully they all spoke French so I wasn’t forced to wheel out my rusty A level German and bore everybody rigid with my memories of reading the novels of Heinrich Böll and Friedrich Dürrenmatt!

A particularly feisty lady with a tattoo’d armpit regaled us with stories about her travels in Ladakh while the French expedition leader waxed lyrical about his motorcycle trips in Latin America and mountaineering adventures in Nepal. The food was delicious (sausage risotto), the travelogues were highly entertaining and my contribution to the debate about what breeds of horse were the best for long distance riding was limited to admitting that the last time I’d got onto a horse was when I was aged four in Sri Lanka, shortly before falling off and being dragged through the dust for some distance while clinging on to the reins! Anyway, in French they could be described as ‘cavaliers’ or horseback riders. The camaraderie flowed through the evening with the wine.

After breakfast I headed off back towards Simiane-la-Rotonde under leaden skies with the crack of thunder and flashes of lightning in the distance.

Simiane-la-Rotonde is one of those picture postcard hilltop Luberon villages that are great to visit as a tourist but must be challenging to live in as a local. The narrow cobbled streets are precipitously steep and no cars are permitted in the centre of town. Apart from a pricy restaurant there are zero local facilities meaning you can’t just nip out to stock up on something from your local store! How everybody manages in winter is anybody’s guess!

Over breakfast, the proprietor had given me a bit of local advice. I could shave 10km off the walk to Sault by taking a short cut via the village of Saint- Christol-d’Albion. It proved good advice. Unlike many other little villages I passed through, Saint-Christol-d’Albion boasted a well stocked village shop, a functioning bakery (closed on Thursdays!) and not one, not two, but three café/ restaurants! Maybe it was because I was now in the Vaucluse département.

As I headed off towards Sault, I caught my first glimpse of Mont Ventoux. At 1,910m (6,270 ft), it is the highest mountain in the region and has been nicknamed the “Beast of Provence”,the “Giant of Provence”, and “The Bald Mountain”. It’s also one of the classic stages of the Tour de France, and a mecca for cyclists. Mont Ventoux awaits me tomorrow.

I arrived in Sault shortly after 1pm and made a beeline for a restaurant bustling with bicyclists and tourists. I hadn’t done much to deserve a hearty lunch but the offer of sphagetti carbonara was too good to refuse!

As I downed a beer with my pasta, I wondered whether Meg and Harry’s return to the UK was a harbinger for myself and Olivia. Was it time to return to the Mother Country and foresake a life in the sun for the joys of British pubs, forays to Waitrose and daily updates on the Royals in the British tabloids? It was a difficult choice, but on balance I thought I’d best try and avoid bumping into Meg and Harry for a few more years! France has got it’s problems, but the Royal Family isn’t one of them!