Category: A Very Short Story

From the Short Story Vault

Day 39: Hagetmau to Orthez

Today,s walk is for my cousin,s husband Gary who has been fighting cancer for some time. Good luck Gary.

Started off at 6am. Very dark. Again stopped at the local Patisserie for a couple of chocolate filled buns. These things are delicious. The French really know how to do pastries. Love them. Sort of like a flattened out croissant filled with chocolate. Also, found a French restaurant that was open last night. Finally had a nice French meal. They also had Tapas, an indication that we are close to Spain. In fact, this morning, during our walk,we caught a glimpse of the Pyrenees, way off in the distance, high and mighty and that colour of faded light blue being so far away. Reminds me of home and it also reminded me of that war movie, The Great Escape, where Charles Cobourne,s character successfully makes it to Spain. A Basque guide meets him on the French side to take him over the Pyenees into Spain and freedom. Indeed I have been walking and humming the theme song from that movie all morning:

They sure don,t make movies like that one anymore.

Walked in the dark for about an hour. Watched the sun slowly come up with its subtle hues of gold, pinks, orange and greyish blue. It never ceases to amaze me – sunrises – a new day, new beginnings, breath of life. And like those sunflowers we can rise and meet the new day with joyous hope. Forget our troubles for just one minute and marvel at nature,s blessings. Wonderful. Wonderful to be alive for just one more day.

Landscape is more pronounced, more dramatic. Hilly again. Climbed 4 hills, one long and gradual while 3 were very steep. I am used to them now. I welcome the challenge. I can generally make it to the top out of breath and perspiring but I recover very quickly. Bring em on, I say.

France is blessed with gorgeous countryside and unique, quaint and picturesques villages. Now if they would only open their cafes and restaurants they would have it made.  The French are also very patriotic and religious, at least they were at one time. Crosses and religious icons dot the countryside. Some are real works of art:

I loved this centotaph to France’s fallen soldiers, especially poignant during the Great War where France lost over 1 million men. Canada lost 60,000. France 1 million – a whole generation of young men. This was very hard demographically as a whole generation of women in France could not find a husband. Think about that for a moment!

Hagatmau,s Cenotaph

This is coming to and end for me. Just 3 more walks and I am finished. I am excited and sad. Funny, I look upon St Jean Pied de Port like some old western town. You see this is a termination point for some like me; it is also area where 4 of Europe,s pilgrimages come together and congregate for that climb over the Pyrenees to begin the Spanish pilgrimage to Santiago. It will also be the starting point for those coming here from North America. But instead of gun slingers this town is full of Pilgrims – all beginning to suffer and those like me to end the suffering because, as I have pointed out, pilgrims cannot swear, they cannot have fun, listen to classic rock, eat good food or have good conversation. No, no, no. Pilgrims have to suffer and as this blog will attest and be my witness, I have broken every single damn pilgrim rule many, many times. Oops, sorry, Pilgrims are not allowed to swear.

Oh, and a green hue hangs over St Jean Pied de Port. They don,t know how to rid the town of that hue and accompanying smell but when the wind is just right, from the Northeast, the town will cleanse itself and send that pilgrim scent up and over the Pyrenees into Spain. This will forever remind those rookie pilgrims of what lies ahead. Peee-Yew.

Have a good Pilgrim day.

Cheers

It,s only the beginning – forall of us.

Day 38: Saint Severs to Hagetmau

Today,s walk is dedicated to Ruth. With the support of her husband Ruth has been fighting cancer for a very long time. She has great courage to carry on with this journey.

Left Saint Severs at 0645am. Cool and very humid. Found a Boulanger in the square that was open so I stopped and bought two danishes. Warm, delicious.

Landscape has changed dramatically. From a flat monotonous, monochromatic terrain that was covered in sand – hot,dusty and full of smidgens – to one that is hilly, lush and variable. Gone is the scrub brush. Back to rolling hills, corn fields, meadows and dark green forests. The odd farmhouse breaks the landscape and the usual cacaphony of dogs breaks the morning silence as our presence is smelt and detected by these dogs a mile away.I have to laugh as the residents get their morning wakeup call whenever we pass by. I love to yelp and play with these dogs but then again, there is usually a very high fence separating us.

Why attack dogs? I do n,t know but seeing a lapso apso barking away somehow doesn,t cut it as a guard dog.

A very old eglise.

Saint Giron’s  Crypt-12th Century. Doesn’t look a day over 500 years I think!

My shoes are starting to fall apart. Only a few days left. Hope they can last.

Walking alone today. Pretty fast pace. Covered 16 kilometers in just over 3 hours. Hagetmau is more of a modern town compared to Saint Severs,which is  medieval going back to the stones throw in time.

Jacobin Cloister

Buildings are taking on more and more of a Spanish motife. Terra cota roofs, stucco, iron wrought railings. In fact the square in Hagetmau where I am currently sitting reminds me of old town San Diego rather than some French style city in North America such as Quebec City. I know we are getting closer to Basque country. Will not be long now.

Dutch women returned last night. Just as I was playing Celebration by Kool and the Gang, they walked through the door. They seemed to be more relaxed today than a few days ago. The older one actually smiled and laughed at one of my stupid jokes. Lightening up perhaps? Maybe it is the Camino spirit. One can only hope.

 

This is what I would call a perfect song. Great lyrics, melody. It has the whole range of musical instruments such as strings, acoustic and electric guitars, piano and saxophone. Came out around 1976 and is still great:

 

 

Day 37: Mont Marsan to Saint Severs

Today,s walk is dedicated to my brother Kevin who is just beginning his cancer journey. I pray for him.

I bet you didn,t know that bullfighting is very popular in this part of France. They don,t kill them here though they just lull them to sleep. The crowds go nuts with boredom. Weird!

Well today was very pleasant. Overcast, very humid, smells of rain. We covered off 22 km in about 4.5 hours. Pretty good. Stopped in one village where a cafe was open and had a coffee au lait. People were very friendly. You know I have found that throughout this trip if you just try to communicate, no matter how bad your French is, they will respond in kind. Have a few laughs as well but that is okay. My walking companion is amazed at how well my reception is.

Oh, I wanted to mention that the woman who welcomed us in Saint Marsan was a real sweatheart. She was ex French Air Force having done 18 years as an Air Traffic Controller. Now a nessage therapist like my daughter in law.  Can,t wait to tell this Dutch woman when we see her. Yes, apparently they are staying at the same place as us this evening. Can,t wait to see the look on her face when I tell her I got a nessage from a French Air Traffic Controller. She will have a righteous shit-fit. Yesssss! Love it.

Saint Sever is a very old village. They are or were very religious here as they have two churches. Beautiful. Jacobins have a monastary here as well. And like every single hamlet, village, town or city, one has to climb a hill before entering it. This place had a huge hill. Hard at the end of a day,s walk. Oh well.

Oh, I got a haircut and beard trim today. It was getting unruly.  The little children were running away from me when I approached. “ Look mommy that man is scary” I would hear them say. So, I found a hairdresser in Saint -Sever. My two sweathearts:

We had a great time and a few laughs.

The one on the left cut my hair and trimmed my beard. What do you think?

It is cooler though. I also asked her why our eye-brows remained the same colour when everything else turned grey. She shrugged her shoulders and said: “un mystere de la vie Monsieur.”

See, I knew it.

This here song is dedicated to the Dutch woman:

Day 35 and 36

No wifi yesterday. Two posts here. Al most into my last week so each walking day will have a dedication:

Day 35: Bourriot Bergonce to Neuf Fontaine

Today,s walk is dedicated to my wife Marijke, who passed away last December.

Neuf Fontaine means new fountains in English. I can’t wait to see these new fountains??? I think.

Given that I described the Pilgrim’s life over the past two posts, I’ll briefly describe the landscape we experienced over the past two days in two words……..ugly!

This area is called Lalond in Aquitaine. It used to be a huge swamp that was subsequently drained. The soil is of a rough textured, charcoal coloured consistency. Very flat and monotonous terrain. Hot and dusty. Our trail was a narrow pathway on ground that was sandy loam. Very difficult to walk in. Added to that we had the smidgens again, which I desribed a few days ago. With temperatures in the low 30s it made for a very hard slog.

It is like walking through sand dunes. We have had 2 days of this. Expecting a third. Yuck!

Forgot. Want to show you where we stayed in Bassanne:

Place is called Moulin de Piss, translated to piss in the Mill. No, not really, but there you have it a  restored 15th Century mill (Moulin). Don,t know what Piis is in English and I was afraid to ask.

Captieux was a small village, nothing open. Unbelievable that there was no wifi anywhere in that small village. People in Bourriot Bergance were very unfriendly. My walking companion, a European, was disgusted. He could not believe how anal the place was. I told him that these places would be bankrupt in two months in Canada. I am sorry but I just do not understand the mindset. It is as if, as customers, we are a huge burdon to their ”Riesta” routine.

Couple we stayed with in Bazas. Wonderful.

Now back to our regular programming.

One of the pleasures of this walk is the silence…deafeningly serene.

Some of you have expressed concern about my well being and enjoyment of this journey after reading my posts about the Pilgrim,s life. I can assure you that those posts were done purely for the fun of it with my tongue firmly in my cheek.

 

Day 36: Neuf Fontaine to Mont Marsan

 

Today,s walk is dedicated to Joanne Daly. Another beautiful woman taken from us way too soon.

Ran into,or should I say, walked into two Dutch women today. One was quite elderly – the wicked witch of the west – and her younger cohort – the witch in training. Now I say this because they were some piece of work. My Dutch friends, Berry and my Limburg friends would be very proud of me for sticking up for Limburgers.

This woman was fron the north of the Netherlands. Exactly where I am not sure but she immediately gave us a bad impression. Remember a way back in post one or two and I mentioned that Dutch guy from North Holland who was such an asshole. Well this lady could have been his mother. I like to call her a lass-hole. She was religious, rightious and retentive in an anal sort of way. When the expression anal retentive came into being they must have been thinking of her. She didn,t at first know that my wife was from Limburg, the Netherlands or that I had visited the Netherlands many, many times and was intimately familiar with the Netherlands and Limburg. Here is what she said: Limburgers are a bunch of farmers who cannot properly speak the Dutch language. Nobody north of Eindhoven can understand a word Limburgers say. Limburgers are ignorant people who should be part of Belgium. Hag n slag, that chocolate delight for breakfast, is Limburg,s contribution to the world. She did,nt know what it was….and on and on she went.

She looked down on us as part of the unwashed. I told her that as a pilgrim she was part of the great unwashed herself and uncouth as well. When she walked into a French vilkage the dogs went wild. I told here that Limburg vlie (pie) was to die for and that being a Limburger meant a love of life. With her, life was suffrage, suffering. No fun, no joie de vivre. Just suffering. She probably passed out of Pilgrim school top of her class. Because to her being  a pilgrim meant real suffering, no fun.. Her favourite expression must have been “ grin and bear it.” Her favourite colour was black and after failing to walk on water it was her kind that invented the wooden shoes. What a piece of work. We parted company tout suite.

The walk itself was uneventful. We are getting closer to our destination. It will be bittersweet for me. Wanting to finish but not really wanting to end this wonderful experience.

Covered off 24 kilometers today. Overcast and cloudy, just like our Dutch female cohorts. Hopefully we will not see them again but somehow I doubt it. Like a bad cold these two will probably linger on. Oh, and she was always correcting me like an old school marm on steroids.

Need a positive song today.

Day 32: Bassanne to Bazas

24 kilometers done. Cool early morning followed by heat late morning, early afternoon. Landscape has changes from lush vineyards to scrubgrass. Hot and dry. We appear to be following a valley but the higher hills seem to have flattened out and are way off in the distance. A wide open plain that is boringly unattractive. But hey, I am not complaining one bit. Reminds me of that barren stretch of scenery between Ottawa and Toronto along highway 7. Just about lunchtime we passed what appeared to be a flying club. Just by chance we walked up to the clubhouse wondering if anyone was there. It turned out there was a guy there who had been to Canada on a flying holiday. And, they had a well stocked bar with very cold beer. My walking companion and I eyed the beer and were able to buy two ice cold 1664s. Arrived in Bazas around 1400. Bazas is a cathedral town. Beautiful. Here come da Judge….Peter His name is Peter and he is a retired judge from Ghent, Belgium. He is also crazy. You meet all kinds of characters out here. He kept talking about running out of water. Hates religion and tells me Lourdes is a big scam. He is a lawyer and a judge so he must be crazy. Probably hit himself over the head with the gavel one too many times. That,s the judge on the right. Staying at a retired couple’s place in their home in Bazas.  They volunteer to provide shelter and food to Pilgrims like me. Unbelievable hospitality for strangers but that is the Compostelle way. I wonder if they would do the same in Canada. Great. Dinner! Four courses. Another wonderful evening.   Another Badfinger classic. Peter Hamm, the guy second from the right killed himself at the age of 27 because the band’s American manager ripped them off to the point that they could not even pay the rent. His writing partner, the guy with the black hair, Evans, killed himself a few years later for the same reason. World famous but broke. Hamm blamed himself for the band,s financial state of affairs.