Top of the hill

Sixième jour - Monday 22nd June, Miradoux to Lectoure - 16.3 klms (running total approx 131.7 klms)

I've said this before. Janet and I get on very well. We are quietly comfortable in each other's presence. Sometimes we chatter as we walk, sometimes we just wander along in silence. She is often in front as I dawdle along stopping to take photos.

Today she asked me what I think about as I walk. Often it's about what's going on around me, perhaps influenced by whether I should take this photo or that. Often it's about the subject matter for the day's blog. Sometimesit's today's news. That can sometimes be a challenge, as 3 or 4 or more themes might emerge during the day and I have to choose.

Today's one of those slightly mixed up days.

Even as I wander through relatively peaceful French fields, surrounded by chirping birds, bountiful crops and industrious farmers, passing occasionally through quaint villages sometimes 1,000 years old, it's hard to escape or switch off to the turmoil in the world at large.

Sir Keir Starmer, who from the outside seemed like a reasonable sort of bloke who made some perhaps not so good calls, resigns. The Donald, who I imagine history will show as the worst US President ever by a massive margin, having reached a pretty sub-par agreement to finish(?) a war which he started to some unknown end, once again threatens Iran (the winners in Trump's war???), with another blast of crass gutter language, and nobody even bats an eyelid. And I am still rocked by the apparent reality that the most racist, bigoted, closed-minded politician in the last 30-odd years seems to be appealing to a significant slice of the Australian population.

Bright, happy, colourful bad aliens upsetting the balance of the good monoculture.

These things are far away from my present reality, and I don't worry about them, rather just acknowledge that they are real and out there, awaiting our return.

The other theme for today was mostly environmental. Not the weather report - I'm figuring that you're sick of that - but just the stuff around me.

Here's a rhetorical question which I know the answer to, but which is impossible to avoid at the end of the day's walking, whether that be something in the region of 30klms or only half that. Why have they put all our end-point destinations at the top of a hill? Don't they know that the last kilometre or two are sheer hell, and the last thing we need to do is struggle that last 100 vertical metres when our legs are mutinying and our lungs screaming for respite? Perhaps the initial town planners didn't think of that.

Today's journey was indeed relatively easy. We left Miradoux before 8 for a planned 15klm stroll, broken into two stages - ~5 to the first town for coffee and croissant, and ~10 to Lectoure, our destination for the day. Almost worked. Monday is a French closed day, which we know, so town 1 was fully deserted. That simply meant filling water bottles (today to an unnecessary 5 litres or so for that remaining 10 klms) and hitting the pathways.

Here's a few shots from a long the way:

A couple more shots from inside last night's gite. It will be hard to beat.

I love the rolling wheat fields

The ruined 15th century Château de Gachepouy

I mentioned the birds earlier. For much of the day, especially when we wander along treed paths, there's incessant twitter. Are they just happy, is it bird boy-girl talk, are they sharing hitherto secret food sources, or are they disbelievingly looking down at a couple of crazy Aussies wandering through their territory in the heat.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/7ecab3_f78cd25bf9474255a97dc5d22bd30bb6/file

Was this one of the nuclear wessels Australia didn't buy from the French, I wonder ...

We got into Lectoure at about 12:30. In theory our accommodation wasn't ready until 2pm, but it actually was, so we snuck in at 1.

No rush, for tomorrow is a rest day (and in any case, being a Monday the whole town is closed today), except for the pharmacy for some Compeed (blister cure) and to top up the guaze supply (blister prevention), and the very upmarket Fleurons de Lomagne de Lectoure, where we availed ourselves to bread, local wine and local fromage for what will pass as lunch.

Local bread, wine and cheese. Does it get any better??

Dinner tonight at a bar/pub up the road, and lunch tomorrow at a Michelin restaurant around the corner.

And then on Wednesday back into harness and the random thoughts about the world beyond my immediate domain as I puff and pant to yet another village on top of a hill.