I leave The Hare and the Tortoise on a sunny cool morning with Pierre and Marie. They are very sympa – which is a lot more than congenial, it’s more like soulmates. It’s good walking, partly because of the weather, partly because when I am on the path, off road, the mud is mostly gone. At 11:30 we three stop for lunch. After we eat I go to pay only to find out that it’s already paid for by Pierre.

They tell me that they have space reserved with a friend of Clement’s in Marsolan. I already have a reservation there, but I ask if there is room for one more with them. I want to stay with these people as long as possible. It turns out to be an inspired – and controversial – decision.

Pierre calls, finds out that there is room, reserves a spot for me then, at my request, calls the place where I have already reserved and cancels my reservation. His face gets red as he speaks with the owner of the gite. Apparently the owner thinks that I should pay even if I am not coming. Given the pilgrim traffic here, he is not going to have any problem filling the bed, but he is adamant. So is Pierre. He is furious.

He is a businessman too, the director of two medical supply clinics where he lives, but he says that providing services to pilgrims is different. It is more than just a business and you have to respect the pilgrim as well. He tells the gite owner that it’s not going to happen and ends the connection. If there were going to be a problem renting out the bed, I would have no problem paying, but this is a form of gouging. At the same time I have some sympathy with the gite because I have heard about people who call and make multiple bookings wherever they can, then just pick one and ignore the others – not good pilgrim behaviour.

After a walk of more than 20 kilometres on what turns out to be a hot day we arrive in Marsolan, a tiny, tiny village on a steep hillside. Actually, we arrive separately because they are walking a few hundred metres ahead of me and miss a shortcut that I take, so I arrive a little ahead of them. It doesn’t buy me much because I realise that I have no idea where we are staying, except that it is NOT at the gite where I was booked. We meet a local and ask him the location of the gite Bourdon. He has no idea. We ask him how many people live in the village. He says; “35”.

How on earth can he not know where the gite is? The mystery is solved when Marie goes off on a recce, leaving Pierre and me in the town square. When she returns she tells us that the gite is the very last house on the left on the way out of the village, it is a new gite in a very old building and it is under construction. Part of a wall in the kitchen is actually part of the original wall that surrounded the fortified town.

Phillipe, the owner, is a friend of Clement’s and Vincent’s … and of Thereze. He welcomes us warmly, repeats that the gite is under construction – it certainly is – and shows us to our beds. He takes dust covers off the beds. There is a toilet, wobbly, no seat yet and a shower and construction materials and dust everywhere. But it doesn’t matter. The welcome is genuine. How new is it? We are pilgrims 7, 8 and 9 to stay here. I am the first Canadian, Pierre and Marie are the first couple. Phillipe tells us with a wry smile that he is going to stop counting after 10.

I have a little sleep, Pierre and Marie walk back up the hill to the epicerie for some food for tonight’s dinner. While they are out, Phillipe tells me that he spent several months in Canada some 20 years ago, but did not learn much English. He was always with French speakers who spoke better English than he did, so he depended on them. He also spent several months in the very far north of Quebec in the James Bay region with the Indians of that area. I never do find out what he was doing there. I can usually get the drift of the conversation but remain a touch hazy on the details.

The gite is not yet sufficiently advanced to offer dinner and Phillipe offers that he is not much of a cook. We end up with a huge salad, sausages and pasta carbonara. It is all excellent. We four sit together at the kitchen table, enjoying each other’s company. I don’t know quite how it happens, but Phillipe asks if we would like a little whisky. Marie declines but Pierre and I think that’s a good idea, which sounds good and gets much better very quickly when he pulls out a bottle of single malt scotch. I find the atmosphere and the company just entrancing.

Phillipe is a successful business man from Grenoble who decided that he wanted – probably needed – to operate a gite, much like Vincent and Clement the last couple of days. He found this building with assistance from Thereze, bought it and is just starting up. His wife is in Grenoble and will come here in a year when the reconstruction is complete to help him run the gite. I find these dedicated hospitalieres just fascinating. They have a passion for the chemin and for the pilgrims who travel it. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it’s not even a get-rich-ever scheme. He charges 16 Euros for the night and that includes breakfast.

We have discovered that accommodation on Condom is going to be a problem for Pierre and Marie. I booked mine several days ago, when I booked four days in a row, using the kind services of Fanny from Moissac. Marie, using the magic of her cell and her considerable persuasion skills, has found a place for them in Condom at an Equestrian Centre a couple of kilometres out of town.

We talk for hours, just four of us, about the chemin, our lives, our families. Marie, a young and attractive 41, is an Emergency Room nurse, 20 years experience, three children from a former marriage from 7 to 17, Pierre, 48, is the director of two medical supply clinics back home in Alsace, two children from a former marriage. They are clearly very happy together. They often walk hand-in-hand, Pierre getting to carry all four poles.

They started this walk in Montcuq and will finish in Condom. Pierre, with a delicious and wicked sense of humour, points out that Montcuq, as pronounced and then translated, sounds like “My ass” in English and Condom needs no translation. I suspect that he may have chosen these points on purpose, although he assures me that it has to do with train connections. I am saddened that we will part so soon. I was hoping to spend longer with them, But tomorrow will be the last day. I am very fond – that’s not strong enough – I am in love with both of them and it’s not driven by lust. Well perhaps just a bit, she is very attractive and warm, but it is much more than that. Sometimes in my life I meet people with whom I make an immediate and deep connection. Pierre and Marie are two of these, as are my recent hosts Vincent and Marie.

Off to bed quite late – after 11, which here on the chemin is really late. The three of us share a room. I go to bed first and am asleep when they come in a few minutes later – they tell me. And it’s off to Condom tomorrow. Should be good for a joke or two in poor taste.

Today it starts to rain lightly just before I leave this lovely old convent and the warmth of the people here. So I have to put on my rain jacket and rain cover for the backpack, which means that in less than 10 minutes the rain stops. It stays overcast. After about 20 minutes I have to stop and take off the jacket. It is just too hot for walking. The chemin today will be about 20 kilometres, of which 17 are between a narrow canal and a larger river which is, as I discover after about half an hour, a larger canal.

It is a section of the sea-to-sea canal, connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, cutting off hundreds of miles of sea journey and the ever-present threat of pirates or hostile action. And it was built just in time to be made superfluous by the invention of the steam engine. I wonder if the investors ever recovered their money.

The path is dead flat, paved and almost straight and has alongside a long parade of very large trees, plantane in French. I think of them as camouflage trees because of the trunk, which is a mottled pattern of grey, brown and a very pale green. Looks like perfect camouflage material to me. I shall have to find out what plantane is in English. After about three hours of this I am almost – almost – wishing for a hill. A little one would suffice. Mud I am not missing.

It starts to rain again, fairly steadily and I have to put my rain jacket back on. At about 1 PM I arrive in Espalais at the gite “Par’Chemin …”, run by Vincent and Sylvie. The welcome is genuine and Sylvie, with a big smile, asks me if I would like a basin of warm salt water for my feet. Yes I would. I dump my backpack, take off my boots and settle into an easy chair under the huge overhanging roof with my feet in the basin. It is heaven.

Vincent speaks excellent English and I ask him where he learned it. Well, from age 5 to 13 he lived with his parents in the US. While I sit with my feet in the basin, he tells me a wonderful, terrible story that I have to share with you. He is Swiss, Sylvie is French, grew up about 10 kilometres from here. Vincent, late 40s, was a successful HR director for a large international organisation after working for 14 years with the International Committee of the Red Cross in war zones. He was well up on the ladder of success, without any clear intention of climbing it.

Then, without warning, his father, a successful international public health researcher, committed suicide at age 77. He left a letter explaining that there was a line between high creativity and madness and he thought that he had crossed the line. Then he stabbed himself through the heart. The family was stunned. Vincent decided to go for a long, long walk on the chemin de Saint Jacques, all the ay from Le Puy en Velay to Santiago hoping to make sense of his father’s apparent act of madness. He also decided to wear a mohair shirt that for him symbolised his father as he walked.

On his walk, he saw this farmhouse in this tiny town of Espalais. He describes his reaction as a “coup de coeur”, literally a blow to the heart. He stopped, discovered no-one here, had a picnic in the overgrown garden and went on. As he walked he thought about how he could convert this old farmhouse into a welcoming stop for pilgrims. He had noticed a “For Sale” sign as he left the property. But it seemed a pipe dream. He had a job, a career and he did not have the kind of money that would be required to give everything up to realise this dream. So he walked on, thinking about his life and its meaning.

When he arrived, finally, in Finisterre he took off the mohair shirt and set flame to it. (It’s a tradition that once you get to Finisterre, you destroy, by burning or throwing in the ocean, something that you brought with you for that purpose. Perhaps it’s symbolic of turning over a page in your life.) Of course the shirt, being mohair, smouldered, just wouldn’t burn. So he tied knots in the arms and whirling it over his head, threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he went home to pick up his life.

At home in Geneva his mother asked; “What are you going to do with your life?” He told her about his impossible dream. Then she said; “When your father died, he left some money. I think that he would have liked you to have some of it. It might help you”. A gift from both his father and his mother, it was 10,000 Euros less than the asking price of the property in France.

When Vincent enquired about the property, the owner wanted to know about Vincent’s plans for it. It turns out that the owner’s father had for years provided a welcome for pilgrims, never a gite in the commercial sense, just a place that welcomed pilgrims on the way. It had been for sale for five years, but as the owner explained; “I have been waiting patiently for the right buyer”.

He was financially comfortable, still owns a lot of land in the area. He wanted someone who would carry on the tradition of welcoming weary pilgrims as they made their way towards wherever they were heading. So the property changed hands about 18 months ago.

Since then Vincent and Sylvie have created a little paradise here, providing a warm welcome to pilgrims as they travel. And the price is “donativo”, or pay what you can. They want to create an environment, not based on a certain price or expectation, where they respect the pilgrims and honour their needs, the pilgrims respect the effort and welcome of these two delightful hosts. And each side gains from the exchange. There is an opportunity here to rest, to reflect, to meditate or to discuss one’s problems without fearing the judgement of someone else. Just a place to be. I think that they have been successful in this intent.

As both of them read the “Life’s Lessons Relearned” from my book, they exclaim as they read each one, “That’s exactly it, that’s exactly it!” I am simply overcome with emotion as I embrace them both and I tell them; “It’s not often that I fall in love with two people at the same time”. And it is true. If there is any place on the chemin where the best of the spirit of true human fellowship shines brightly, this is it. This is true spirituality in action. She is weeping with emotion, I am close to tears.

I ask how they ended up together. Vincent tells me that they have a common acquaintance, Steff, in the village. One day Steff asked Sylvie, who had dropped in, if she knew the Swiss guy. She said; “No”, he said: “You have to know the Swiss guy” and brought her here to meet the Swiss guy. She had been interested in the use of the property in former days and was glad to see it being put to its new purpose. They met a few times, then Sylvie decided to go for a walk on the Camino, perhaps having a life change in mind. He drove her to Toulouse, she got a train to St. Jean Pied de Port and walked towards Santiago. She got as far as Leon where Vincent met her. They came back here and decided to see how well it would work to be together. That’s Vincent’s story.

Here is Sylvie’s version: A year or so earlier, she had had a boyfriend who was a realtor. She asked him to let her take a look at this house, which was on the market. She walked through it and felt a powerful connection to the house, but had no interest in buying it. She already had a place elsewhere. One day she met Steff in the village and he invited her back to his house where he was welcoming some pilgrims. She had had a friendly breakup with her boyfriend just two days before. They then came as a group out to the Swiss guy’s house and she felt her heart tug as she turned into the driveway and realised that it was THIS house. Vincent was not here at the time and they sat in the garden until he came home later.

He invited her to see what he had done so far and she was impressed, and looked forward to meeting him again. There was a special connection to Vincent. They met a few times, each becoming a little more interested in the other. One morning she woke with the urge to walk the Camino, which had not been in her plans at all. He offered to drive her to the train in Toulouse where she took the train to St. Jean Pied de Port and started walking. At the station as she left he told her that he would be waiting for her, so he was already sure.

A few weeks into her journey (they had been messaging back and forth) she had to cut her journey short to return to France. She was in Leon and he drove 800 kilometres to pick her up and bring her back. By this time he picked her up in Spain she was pretty sure that he was the guy for her. By the time they got back to this house she was sure.

My take on it, a year later, is that it is working just fine. And by the way, both Vincent and Sylvie have read and approved their version of the story.

I tell them that I see in them the same kind of relationship that Carroll and I have. We have more than 54 years, they have one, but I expect that this is a relationship that will pass all the tests to which it will be put. There is evident mutual respect and affection and self respect as well. With both, this ought to work just fine over the years.

One of the things that Vincent did was to order a huge table to be put under the overhanging roof. He went to a mill about 30 kilometres from here and asked for a board 6 metres long, 1.3 meters wide and 8 cm thick. The mill owner said; “You’re from the city, aren’t you?” Vincent said that he was. The mill owner then said that if he were able to provide a single board, it would be prohibitively expensive, so they settled on three boards that would do the same thing. Vincent sanded and varnished the surface and put it on two huge oak stumps as a base and as a sign of the rootedness of the place. He tells me that this table is a signal of his intention to stay. I am sitting at this wonderful table as I write. With the light wind, it is just cool enough that wearing my fleece, unzipped, is just right.

With my full permission, they will take my life’s lessons from the book, translate them into multiple languages and post them on the walls of the gite. I will, when I get home, send them an autographed copy of the book.

Some people come in whom I know and I convince them to stay, so we are about a half dozen now. There has been a fete for the past four days in the village and four or five locals have arrived for a visit. They stay for a drink, so Vincent is being accepted here. That is very important for him and for Sylvie.

It has become overcast and quite dark and, about quarter to 6, a long series of regular loud explosions, each followed by a whistling sound, can be heard. So far about ten minutes. It sounds like something pretty heavy being lofted into the air. It’s louder than a 105, less loud than a 155 artillery round. If this were Canada, I would assume that someone was doing avalanche control. Someone explains that they are firing warm air – I am unclear how it is packaged – into the clouds to break them up and avoid the hail. I gather that hail is sufficiently common in this area that this makes sense. Does it work? It doesn’t hail. After a brief hiatus, it starts again but much closer. It gets very dark and it rains but it never does hail.

At dinner we are 11 people, including people I have met several times: Nicolas, the French guy who speaks excellent English and Mark, the guy walking from his home in Antwerp to Santiago. With us are Pierre and Marie Kirschner from Hochstatt, near the German border. He is a great big guy, big features, huge hands, dark, very funny, huge laugh as well. Later in the evening he picks up a guitar and plays … CCR, There’s a Bad Moon Rising. I never expected to hear that here, and I have to tell them all the story about that song being the night flying theme song for my helicopter unit some 40 years ago.

Even later a shy young man offers us a nursery song in Occitan, the ancient language which was spoken in Languedoc … and apparently still is. I go off to bed quite late, almost 11, feeling loved and loving.

I am up at 6:45 and ready to go, except for breakfast by 7:30. I have breakfast with the two Italians and head off on a perfectly beautiful day. The sun is shining, there is barely a cloud in the sky and it is cool, just perfect for walking. Maybe, just maybe, the weather has changed. I am only going 9 kilometres today, the equivalent of a rest day.

The only bad news is that I have lost my power adapter, again. Somewhere in the last two or three days I recharged my camera battery and blithely pulled the plug from the wall, neatly leaving behind the adapter plug in the socket. I did this last year in Paris before I even got started, so I am improving. It has taken two weeks this time.

I have about 100 minutes still on my camera battery, so it is not an immediate problem. I am heading to Moissac today. It is a pretty big town, about 12,000, so maybe I can find an adapter there, except it is another holiday weekend in France, so everything will be closed, and so it turns out.

For the first hour the walk is on roads and much less muddy path and I am, as always, hopeful that this will continue all the way to Moissac. Then I hit an incline on a path in a forest and start to climb. It is a five rest stop climb and as I reach the top, there is a little clearing. I look around warily for the low bench, but there is none. Once bitten …

The rest of the walk is through farmland, vineyards and fruit trees. I ask someone in an orchard what type of fruit and he responds; “Abricots”. There is a lot of this white plastic sheeting over the rows of vines and low trees. I discover that they are primarily for protection from hail, with a secondary purpose of protection from bird predation.

I arrive at the gite in Moissac before noon and it is a marvel, a former convent built around 1860, with an interior courtyard and garden, absolutely beautiful. The reception here is very friendly with a young woman – another Fanny – helping me make reservations for the next four days. There is another former convent like this in Condom, where I will spend two nights a few days from now. Well, no I won’t. I have just been informed that it is full already, so Fanny is looking for another spot in Condom for me.

I have run out of Euros, so I walk down into the town centre, find an ATM and discover the huge Abbey of Saint Pierre, more than 1300 years old, founded in legend by Clovis and located on a small square where there are little restaurants open. I meet the Italian who speaks French – we were at the same gite last night – and we have lunch together.

He tells me that he started in Le Puy with two other guys. The first dropped out at Conques with eye problems, the second is dropping out today with a foot or leg problem and he has developed a problem leg as well. He is hanging in, but doesn’t know how much farther he will be able to go. He comes back to the gite with me and gets a bed without a reservation, but I am thinking he is lucky. And here again is my quiet friend from Vichy.

Back at the gite, I meet Stephanie, a young Quebecoise with a severe limp, a muscle problem in her lower leg. She is staying here a few days to recuperate. Stephanie has a power plug adapter, which I have borrowed and recharged my camera battery. Another Canadian arrives, this time with a sprained ankle. He slipped sideways in the mud and his ankle is badly swollen. He won’t be walking anywhere for a few days.

It is a powerful reminder that the body only works as well as the least functioning part, so it is incumbent for me to pay attention to my physical surroundings. You see, Carroll, I am listening, even when you think I’m not.

As I sit here, people keep coming in. Already my room of four beds has been fully occupied. This is obviously a very popular place to stay. Families come in, one group of 9 travellers, some Americans on bikes.

Things are getting exciting, in an uncomfortable way, on the accommodation front. Fanny has been calling the gites in Condom and is having trouble getting a place. It is almost 7 PM. Apparently there is a big fete in Condom this weekend and many many people are reserving space. She is hopeful that she can find something for me this evening. We shall see. She has been extraordinarily helpful today.

She finally, just as dinner is called, has me a spot. It’s only for one night and the person at the other end of the phone in Condom tells her that I wouldn’t want to stay in Condom two nights. The fete will be very crowded – 30,000 in a town of 10,000 – the streets will be full of drunks and the noise will be awful. What’s not to like? So I will stay in Condom one night and move on the next day. I will take my break a little farther along the route.

At dinner I sit with my Vichy friend, another who remembers me from Conques and is dinner is finishing, here are two pilgrims whom I last saw in Estaing. It’s like old home week in … Moissac (I had to think for a moment about where I actually am at the moment). They have a spirited discussion about the French presidential election. Hollande, the socialist, has beaten Sarkozy, the right of centre candidate and the sitting president.

It’s a strange environment on the chemin. There is this stream, sometimes a river, of people all heading in the same direction. Some drop out, some drop in, some are planning on going all the way to Santiago (and it’s funny, as we get closer to the Spanish border, the names are becoming interchangeable; St. Jacques and Santiago, as are the terms “camino” and “chemin”).

It’s after 9 and I have to go to bed. Another longish day tomorrow after an easy and happy one today.

This has been one of the best gites that I have stayed in and certainly the most comprehensive in terms of support for pilgrims. Sheets on the beds, towels, washing and drying of clothes, an excellent meal last evening. For the foodies among you, here is the menu: Carrot soup, a cold pie of veal, ham, foie gras and caviar, salad, country sausages roasted with whole figs, bread and red wine as needed, caramel custard. And that is included in the 32 Euros for an overnight stay.

It’s a little bittersweet leaving the gite this morning. Most of the people here are going on to Moissac and from there a number of them are leaving the chemin to go back to work. I am going only as far as La Baysse, about 18 kilometres and about 8 kilometres short of Moissac, so I will likely not see them again. Even those who are continuing on will be a full day ahead of me, so I may or may not see them again. Many kisses and hugs and lots of “bon courage”. Out I go at 8 AM into the partly cloudy weather. It’s cool, there is a light breeze, threats of thunderstorms, perfect for walking. Out of Lauzerte, with great smiles and “bon chemin” from Michel and Bernadette, the genial and warm hosts at the gite Les Figuiers.

The chemin is on road for about a kilometre, then off onto a path which, surprise, turns sharply upwards into a woods. It is a long hard climb again and I stop several times to catch my breath. As I approach the top I can see that there is a tiny clearing and on the right hand side a low backless bench. I can really use a short rest, so I decide to sit down on the bench. It looks too good to be true … and like the witch’s cottage in Hansel and Gretel, it IS too good to be true.

It is very low and as I sit, I do not lean forward enough to compensate for the size and weight of the pack. I know just before I touch the bench that I won’t be here long. It is one of those life’s experiences best experienced without an audience.

In extreme slow motion I tip backwards flailing my arms and poles in a desperate and unsuccessful effort to avoid the inevitable. Down I go on my back on my backpack … in the mud. Then, like a turtle, I discover that I cannot turn over or get up. Suddenly I have a lot more respect for overturned turtles. I have to unclip the two clips that hold my backpack on, wriggle out of the harness and turn over, now with both knees on the mud, to get up. Happily, no-one comes up the trail to see any of this, so I am able to get my gear back on and get out of there, leaving the trap fully set for the next unsuspecting pilgrim.

Yesterday I spoke for a while with Mike, the Aussie whom I met in Conques. At that time, he had told me that his first walk to Santiago was quite spiritual for him, but the last two have had no religious or spiritual overtones at all. I asked him yesterday whether anything had changed since then. He told me no, that this walk was for him a holiday but that the spiritual part was not there at all. He was looking for it, it just was not there for him.

Today as I walked I thought about this. Was there a religious or spiritual element in this journey for me? Or was I just having a holiday (although it doesn’t feel like one)? And as I walked on a quiet country road, alone with the morning and the birds and the wind, the answer came to me in a flash. How could I have been so blind, since the spirituality is all around me? It is in my fellow pilgrims, as well as in the people working in the gites, by conviction and often as volunteers and, by extension, also in me. Their spirit of caring, warmth, concern, yes even love, has been all around me since I started the walk.

Imagine, if you will, a world of people who are friendly with each other, even strangers, ask about your well-being … and are genuinely interested in the answer, share without being asked when a need is evident, a world where help is offered freely whenever help is needed.

This is the world of the chemin and the world of the camino. The spirit of the people on it makes the chemin. Are they touched by the spirit of God? Some think so. I don’t know, so I can’t say that they are or that they are not. I think that this is what we can be when we reach for our enormous personal potential for good.

It doesn’t seem to me that we need to call on another power to be able to treat one another with respect and value each other as individuals on the same journey, this journey of life that we are all making together. The chemin that I am on at this moment is just a microcosm of what the world could be like, if people would give up their lust for power, for advantage over one another. I like this world of caring and respect and love a lot more than that other one of fighting and clawing each other.

The rest of the morning is anti-climax. It’s a mix of road and path, the path always muddy. One section is an uphill piece, between two farmer’s fields and the mud is so slippery that it is one step forward, half a step slide backward, and so on. It is not very high but it is very exhausting, especially since there is nothing to hang on to and the probability of falling is very high. I should worry – I am already pretty muddy from what will be forever known as the “Lauzerte bench incident”. In the event I do not fall and I do reach the top, where I stop for five minutes to recover.

At the 14 kilometre mark there is a town with a restaurant which is nicely placed to catch the pilgrim traffic – and there they are, 5 or 6 people from this morning’s breakfast. I stop, have a beer and a couple of bananas, share a bit of dried sausage from one of my friends and finally head out for the last four kilometres for me today. For whatever reason the body does not want to cooperate, so I walk very slowly and it takes me an hour to walk the distance, all on road. I spot the sign and turn in to this gite. La Baysse, once again, turns out to be a single home, not a village.

I am the only pilgrim here at the moment here, although two Italian guys come in later. I sleep for 90 minutes and feel much better. I wash out my clothes, hang them out to dry – it promptly rains, and discover to my delight that the gite has WiFi so I can talk to Carroll using Skype. The magic of technology.

I acknowledge that there is an argument that we should eschew technology while we are on the chemin, to allow us to be alone with our thoughts. But last evening I was able to talk to and see my two grandchildren in Canada. I have no problem being alone with my thoughts … and I don’t think that I have to be here to do this.

The chemin is just a place and time where it is easier to slow down, feel your own heartbeat, sense the heartbeat of others and recognise that in so many fundamental ways we are the same. I think that we can do this no matter where we are. We just have to make the effort.

I use technology today to communicate with one of the Italians, with whom I have no common language. But on my iPad I have an app called iTranslate that allows me to communicate in English, he in Italian. It’s not perfect but allows us to communicate … and that is the first step in understanding. I can’t figure out he can be here without any French, but he is with another Italian whom he met on the camino in Spain four years ago.

And at dinner, with our hosts, there is my friend from Vichy. Eating with our hosts is another first. All six of us sit down and eat together. We eat all food produced locally, pea soup, pork from within five kilometres, strawberries produced in a nearby town. The hosts, M. and Mme. Heinrich are foster parents to troubled children. It takes a very special kind of person to take on the catastrophes that can happen when parents are not able for whatever reason to bring up a child.

At 9:30 we finish an animated conversation and head off to bed. It’s cold, so there will be an extra cover on the bed tonight.

The weather forecast for today is partly cloudy in the morning, with thunderstorms with hail coming in the afternoon. So it looks as if getting out in good time might be important. In the event, I am out of this gite by 8:30 and, frankly, it is not one that I would recommend for its warm and welcoming spirit. At breakfast I discover that they have picnic lunches available for today. That is great because everything I have read about this next section says that there is not place to get food for over 20 kilometres. When I ask about buying the lunch I am told that, désolé, I have to have ordered it the evening before.

I do surreptitiously create a little picnic of my own with a chunk of bread and butter wrapped in a napkin and a couple of small hard pears. I say surreptitiously because the breakfast Nazi is standing there, checking that everyone has actually paid for breakfast. Another first in a gite. I smuggle it out of the breakfast area and I am out of here with the rain cover on my pack in case.

I walk through Cahors and across the huge 13th century bridge over the Lot River. I cannot at first see where the path goes and then I see, to my horror – why am I surprised? – that there are pilgrims practically overhead on the face of the cliff in front of me. I gird my loins, figuratively, and start up the climb. It is not as high as the one after Conques, but it is even steeper. In places the local authorities have installed steps which is a good idea. Except that the rise of each step is well over a foot.

In addition the path switches back and forth as it climbs, with only a narrow screen of brush to give the climber the illusion of safety. I am under no such illusion. If I were to trip off the edge here or slide on the wet rounded stones, the fall could easily be 50 or 100 feet on to a very hard surface. I am not afraid of heights but, as you may have gathered, this bit concerns me. This is the first place on the chemin where I use handholds to help me up the incline.

After the top, I leave the valley of the Lot and walk into an area of small farm holdings, lots of small woods and a path that is wide, well surfaced and often on small little-used country roads. The vistas here are short, not long, but the air is clean and smells of spring. So much rain has taken any pollution out of the air, if there was any here to begin with. I am still in a sparsely populated area and expect that that will continue.

Frans, the Dutch guy walking from his home, overtakes me, we talk for a couple of minutes, then off he goes on with his long legs and long stride. We are heading to the same town, so maybe we will meet later. Then Fanny, the young Swiss girl whom I last saw in Conques, catches up to me, followed by Johanna, another Swiss with whom I ate in Cassagnole. Everyone passes me, since I am bent on walking at my own pace. I am glad to be meeting people who recognise me. I start to get a feel for how powerful the need for connection is and why the threat of exile or shunning or, as the British so quaintly put it, sending some one to Coventry is. I did not like what was going on in my own mind last evening.

The weather is good until noon, when the promised thunderstorms start to appear on the horizon. Eventually it starts to rain and I arrive at the gite very wet but not thundered on.

And here are Jacques Parmentier, the guy from Vichy with whom I shared a bench in Livinhac le Haut a few days ago, along with a couple of guys with whom I have been sharing a gite for some of the past few days. When I first saw them, my gadar fired off and every time I see them, it continues to signal me. They are in the 50s – I am guessing – and are close all the time. I don’t mean cuddly close, no sign of that, but just a quiet attachment that looks like more than friendship, it looks like a long-term relationship. I could be entirely wrong and I don’t care what they do – or not – together, but it is interesting that the signals seem so clear to me. They seem like nice guys and we see each other more often on the chemin.

I have a bed in a room which I share with three others, one a quiet older guy who doesn’t participate much and a couple. Now here is a chemin love story. He is Henri-Pierre from Toulouse, 50-something, movie-star handsome with dense back curly hair, justing starting to grey at the temples. She is Brigitte from Holland, little, blond, attractive, also 50-something. I don’t know why he is on the chemin, but I have a pretty good idea about her. She is a psychiatric nurse and has been a volunteer at a hospice for years. Now she is considering changing her career path and becoming a palliative care nurse. I think making this career decision is why she’s here.

It starts back in Le Puy en Velay on 21 April, when they are both there and notice each other, although they do not speak. The next day, after they have both started, he passes her on a steep incline, making a comment about being careful here because it’s quite steep and you could fall, which he promptly does, right in front of her. He laughs as he explains that he fell for her – literally. Evidently they have been nearly inseparable since. He had to leave to go to Paris on business and did not intend to return, but he called her from there and told her that he needed to come back to her. She told him that she would be in or near Cahors. When he arrived back, he called her and told her that he was in Le Hospitalet, a tiny town near Cahors. So was she and they reunited. They have been together since.

Now they have another few days together on the chemin until he really does have to go back to work. Will it work? He is a computer consultant, speaks only French with tiny bits of English, she speaks Dutch, English, French and wants to work in palliative care. Holland and Toulouse are not that close together and where would they choose to live? I have no idea if I will ever learn what happens to them, although I would like to. She is a warm and sincere person. I am a little suspicious of his movie-star looks, but that is unfair. He seems to have really fallen for her as she clearly has for him. I really hope that it works for both of them. If I find out more, I will let you know.

I wake up early, about 6:20, and am relieved to see that even though it’s light, the sun has not yet risen. I realised last evening as the sun set that when it rose it would paint the vertical surface of the town. So after checking my blood glucose (I do this first thing every morning) I leave the little Amadour Hotel and walk 200 meters to the Esplanade Restaurant where I had dinner on the terrace last evening. There is no-one here but me – it isn’t open yet – and it is a perfect viewpoint for my planned photos.

The sun has just illuminated the chateau and the top of the rock face as I arrive. I place the camera on the top of a flat wooden fence, use maximum zoom, and over the next 45 minutes I sit and patiently and about every five minutes take another photo as the sunlight creeps down the surface of the town. When I leave there is still no-one around. I am quite surprised that I am the only person who seems to have realised the photographic potential of this sunrise.

It reminds me of an early morning in Ottawa about 20 years ago when I went to Remic Rapids with a stepladder. John Ceprano had created some wonderful forms out of rock in and near the shallow water and I wanted to get some photos of them. One problem that I had noticed earlier was that, when I stood on the ground and took a picture, the horizon line of low trees on the Quebec shore always showed up and marred the image. I had figured out that using a stepladder would likely solve the problem.

So there I was, almost alone. The only other person there was Ceprano, fixing up some forms that thoughtless people had damaged. I set up the ladder and took my photos. After a while, Ceprano came over and we talked for a bit. He said that I was only the second person that he had ever seen use a ladder for the photos. He also said that I was in very good company. The only other photographer was Malik. So I was in very good company indeed! Sometimes comparisons are odious but not this one.

Today is our 54th wedding anniversary. It seems simultaneously a very long time and no time at all. I remember with absolute clarity the 21-year-old I married in 1958. I see her all the time in the elegant woman she has become. Later today I will call her and tell her how I feel about her and about our wonderful and enduring relationship. I won’t call her now because with the six hour time difference it is two in the morning in Ottawa and calling now would put a little strain on our relationship.

It is now just after 8. I am going to have breakfast and get my gear together for the trip to Cahors. Oh yes, the hotel does not have a stamp for pilgrims for the pilgrim passport! So we find a more generic stamp for the hotel which indicates Rocamadour and that’s what we use.

The taxi arrives at 9 and I am on my way … I think. Yesterday the Tourism Office in Rocamadour found the bus schedule, showed it to me and gave me one. It shows a bus going from Gramat, about 10 minutes from here, at 9:35, arriving in Cahors at 10:45. So I expect to spend the day in Cahors. I wonder idly what I will do all day. The taxi drops me at 9:15 at the station in Gramat – it’s for both busses and trains – and I wait … and I wait. Usually the public transport in Europe is deadly accurate.

At about 10 to 10, I ask someone in a local cafe if there is a bus today. They think so but suggest I ask in the station. I didn’t see anyone there before but in I go and find someone who eventually comes to the wicket. I ask about the bus. He looks confused. “But sir, there is no bus today”. Now I look confused. I tell him about the schedule, which I left in the taxi. He insists there is no bus today, and I ask if there is any way to get to Cahors today. Yes, I can get a train to Cahors at noon. It takes a very devious route going north and east, then west, with a stop and a train change and then goes south to get to Cahors just after 4 PM. Well, I have the whole day, I just wasn’t planning on spending a chunk of it on a train. There go those pesky expectations again.

So now I am sitting under a shade tree in the outdoor patio of a cafe just across the parking lot from the station, waiting patiently until noon. I have a grande creme and a glass of water to sip on.I have lovely weather, a sunny day, birds chirping, gentle cool breeze to keep me company. It is very pleasant. The train arrives at noon and I get on for the short trip north, an hour wait and another short trip south.

The first stop on the train is – you guessed it – Rocamadour. So I paid 20 Euros for a taxi, waited three hours for the train and I could have gotten on at Rocamadour and spent the morning in the town. On the other hand, the wait at the cafe was very pleasant, the staff were congenial and helpful and they let me use their WiFi.

And twice in the past 24 hours a cab driver has charged me less than the meter reading and has refused any more. Toto, I don’t think that we’re in Kansas anymore.

At the half-way point, I sit in the terrace of the restaurant at the station and have a beer and a small salad. Two tables away, facing me is a young man, slouching, face set in a frown, cigarette dangling and a chip like a 2×4 on his shoulder. He is not eating or drinking, just slouching there. When the waitress asks him what he would like, he says he wants nothing, then ignores her. She tells him politely that if he isn’t going to have anything, he has to sit elsewhere. He pointedly ignores her, then after a few minutes takes something from a paper bag and eats it. Another 20 minutes passes before he gets up, leaves his garbage and walks off. A lout is still a lout in every culture and n every language.

The train down is fast, quiet almost empty except for a couple of young guys with a two-month-old kitten who does not like the ride.

At Cahors I ask at the station for directions to the gite. It is on a road directly across from the station and about 400 metres away. When I arrive, it’s a big building with no-one at the welcome desk, so I sit and wait for a few minutes. Someone arrives and checks me in. He doesn’t seem very organised which is explained when I discover a few minutes later that everyone is in a meeting and he is part of the cleaning staff. But everything works. He gives me a room key (in a gite? That’s a first) and sheets and a pillowcase – another first.

I organise dinner here for tonight and they call ahead for me for the next two nights, so that is all arranged. I have discovered that I like the assurance of a bed reserved for me when I arrive.

I speak to Carroll on my cell and we exchange anniversary greetings. I am looking forward to seeing her in less than a month in Barcelona.

Dinner is different. I am the only pilgrim having dinner here. There are a few others but they are all eating in town. Good choice. There are a bunch of teenagers in the dining room to whom I am apparently invisible. The age gap, from their side at least must appear to be a chasm and, in addition, they are all chock full of raging hormones that have absolutely nothing to do with a fossil. There are members of the opposite sex nearby.

And the food, for the first time in a gite, is really institutional. Overcooked chicken legs in what purports to be a curry. At least the fresh raw veggies are good and plentiful.

It doesn’t help that I cannot avoid comparing this anniversary to the one five years ago in Boadilla, where the whole atmosphere was warm and welcoming. But I am here by choice, so stiff upper lip and on with tomorrow.