I wake up this morning raring to go. The day’s rest has rejuvenated me and I am anxious to be on my way. It helps that the day promises to be gorgeous, sunny, not too warm and the chemin, I am told, is easy all the way to Eauze. I have discovered that the three Germans will be in the same gite, Chez Nadine, as me in Eauze, which is good to know. They are good people and I would like to spend more time with them.I say goodbye to Anita, Michel and Hervé, and walk out of the gite.

I know where the chemin is as I leave but as soon as I get to the bottom of the hill I lose track. However, I see a sign for the road to Eauze which promises to be much shorter than the chemin so I head off on the road. I am feeling really good, physically and psychologically. I am walking through vineyards, gently rolling hills, the weather is cooperative and I am right with the world.

As I walk I see a sign for “massage pelerin”. I stop, think about it, walk on 100 metres , stop again and decide; “What the hell – why not?” I walk back to the sign, turn in and walk a couple of hundred metres to a house. I knock on the door, a short woman answers, a little hesitant. I ask if this is where the massage is. She calls out to someone, it turns out to be her husband, who comes to the door. He is the masseur. I drop my backpack and poles at the door. We discuss what he can do, what the price will be and we agree on terms.

Then we walk through the house and out another door into a garden. There is a blue tent-like structure, about 12 feet square and it is where he does the massage. It is effectively outdoors. I strip off everything except my shorts (I am North American after all), even my MedicAlert bracelet. On to the massage table for perhaps one of the best massages of my life. The birds chirping and the light light breeze make it wonderful. When he is done I am just about asleep on the table. He covers me with a sheet, tells me to take my time. It’s good advice, I don’t want to move, it feels so good. I get up, get dressed and he asks me if I would like tea. Of course I would.

Back to the house, he makes green tea which we drink together on the stone patio. He is Denis, a pilgrim from four years ago, not from this region. He loved this area as he walked through and in eight months he and his wife and their blended family of seven children had moved here so he could serve pilgrims as they walk through. I am amazed at the dedication, almost obsession, of so many of the people whom I meet who are providing services along the chemin to pilgrims. Many of them are pilgrims themselves and it shows in their welcome and their whole approach.

The path changes to a walk in farmer’s fields, a lot of barley and a lot of woods. The last third of the chemin today is a dead straight, dead flat road which is shown on the map as the ancient road to Eauze. From all appearances this must have been a Roman road. It has been engineered to be flat, wide and straight. At times it is 10 metres lower than the surrounding land, at times up to 20 metres higher. The land height varies, the road does not. That is a lot of construction and the Romans were exceedingly good at engineering and road-building.

It is exactly the road that I would have wanted had I been a Roman garrison commander about 1800 years ago who needed to move troops, equipment or supplies quickly to deal with an unruly local population. It reminds me of the Eisenhower Interstate system, built in the 1950s for exactly the same reason: move troops, equipment and supplies quickly over large distances.

I listen to the birds chattering and singing – they are loud and insistent – and I speculate about what is actually going on. I know birdsong is sweet, but here is an approximate translation:

“Hi, big fellow. Got a match?”
“Sure I have, sweetheart. You from around here?”
“No. I’m just in town for the festival. You?”
“Yeah, me too. Like to have a drink?”
“Sure, I’d love one. Do you want to sit here on this branch with me or would you like to find a place a little quieter?”
“Sure. Your place or mine?”

It actually takes a little longer than that, because these aren’t trailer trash, these are birds from good nests but you get the idea.

I come into Eauze about 1:30, discover that it is the capital of Armagnac (it’s on the sign) and have great difficulty finding the gite. The town centre is a square next to the church and there are a number of roads leading off. I get differing opinions on where the specific street is. Part of the problem is that it is Monday, which seems to be synonymous with closed in this part of France.

I eventually get sent off on a road which is leading me quickly out into the country and I have little faith that I am actually on the right road. I run through scenarios in my mind about what to do if there is no number 43 or if it is not the gite. However when I get to number 43, I am very relieved to see the gite sign and turn in. I stand in the driveway, not sure what to do next, when the lady hanging up laundry calls to me and welcomes me in. I have arrived at Chez Nadine – she is Nadine and the gite is just fine. It is the bottom floor of a house and I have a bed in a two-bed room. The Germans from yesterday are in the next room. We embrace like old friends.

After washing up and doing the necessary laundry, we walk back into town and sit in the square and have ice cream and beer. But first, I want to tell you about the shower incident. You will remember, I’m sure, from any number of movies, the shower scene in which the man inadvertently – or advertently – walks in on the 25-year-old woman in the shower. She is, of course, like a deer in the headlights and, depending on the movie, soft- or hard-porn, biology takes its course … or not.

Well, fast forward 50 years. The man inadvertently walks in on the 75-year-old woman in the shower. She is, of course, like a deer in the headlights but, unlike the movie, this is more like soft horror … or soft humour, depending on your bent. It is not a pretty scene. After all the “Pardons” and “Je m’excuse” and so on, the man withdraws. The incident is not discussed again.

As we sit in the square we get to know each other – dressed. He, Wilfried, is a couple of years younger than me, from the Constance area. The two ladies, Inge and Helga – Inge is his wife of 48 years – are good friends. He tells me that he worked for the company that makes the Airbus, but that wasn’t his area of specialty. He was an engineer specialising in secure military airfield communications. The couple have spent at least six weeks each year for the last 15 years in India working with orphaned children. The women are friends who met on the chemin as they walked, starting years ago from Constance to Geneva to Le Puy to Cahors to here. They walk a long section each year.

When I go to pay for mine beer, I discover that it is already paid. The attempt to pay is funny. I ask the young waitress for the rechnung and she looks at me and says; “Je ne comprends pas” and of course she doesn’t. I just asked for the bill in German. When I ask for it in French, she tells me that it is done. When I ask again, she says; “Stop, stop, c’est deja fait.” Stop, stop, it’s already done. Well.

Back at the gite, I have a room-mate. It’s weird Harold. I first saw him a kilometre before Eauze on the trail. He was standing over his pack, complaining that it was too heavy and that he was too hot. Of course he was wearing a heavy fleece at the time and it’s warm out. The next time I see him is here. He spends all of his time poring over his maps and his schedule. He is my second OCD in 2 days! He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t eat most things, etc. etc. He is quiet, which is good and we don’t have a lot to say to each other. I don’t want to trigger any hidden murderous impulses. I find later that he has already walked for two months from somewhere north of Paris and he is a few months younger than me.

At dinner with the family, Nadine, her husband and 18-year-old son, we have an aperatif, couscous salad, roast pork, frites (that’s a pleasant surprise) and finish with a drop of armagnac. During dinner I am again pressed into service as a translator.

When Nadine finds out where I am staying tomorrow, she is horrified. What has happened is that I have by mistake selected a gite which is not in Nogaro, but about 8 kilometres this side. She suggests one the far side of Nogaro which will give me two reasonable days of 24 kilometres a day rather that one short day and one very very long day. A couple of phone calls – she is efficient – and it’s all fixed. She also insists on a photo with me for the next book. “It’s very important” she says with a big grin.

Off to bed at 9:30. Harold is a quiet roommate.

A rest day today. I have walked about 180 kilometres in 8 days without a break and the idea of a rest day really appeals. I am just at the 400 kilometre mark. This is a lovely gite, spotlessly clean, roomy with really good toilet and shower facilities, even a washing machine and I am happy to be here. I have breakfast with the group who are leaving, then they are gone and I am alone. It is a strange feeling, kind of like having the whole family emigrate to a far-away country. I might catch up with some of them, perhaps not. The weather is good for the walkers today, light overcast, light breeze, warm, not hot.

I keep out of the road as Anita and Michel do their daily cleanup. Then I am invited to have a small midmorning snack with them, sitting outdoors for coffee and a sweet pastry. Anita tells me that they are heading off to a nearby village for a flea market and would I like to go with them. Of course I would. Into the car for a 10-minute drive to Fourcès, where the market is.

The old town is very unusual since the main square isn’t square. It is round, planted with pollarded sycamore trees with five stone benches down each side of a pathway through the centre of the circle. All the stores around the “square” are fronted with a deep arcade. It is very attractive.

The flea market is under the arcade, in the stores and in the centre area under the sycamores. It is a typical flea market, an awful lot of what appears to be junk, but it might be treasure for someone else. We are far from Paris. The dress is indistinguishable from that at a typical flea market in North America. I sit on one of the benches and watch the world saunter by.

I am enthralled by a tall elderly man who sets up four trestles and two flat surfaces immediately in front of me. It takes him a full 20 minutes to do this, moving the trestles a centimetre at a time. I don’t think that I have ever seen OCD in action before, but this has got to be a textbook example. By the time he gets the goods for sale on the tables and arranged, the buyers will have all gone home for the afternoon. When I leave he has just gotten the white plastic cover on the tables. Fascinating and, so far as I can tell, he is oblivious to me sitting there not five feet away.

Anita finds me sitting there and asks if I will join them to taste a local wine. Hardly needs an invitation, does it? We taste an aperitif wine called Ladevèze made from Armagnac. According to the bottle it is the “authentic apéritif Gascon de Ladevèze”. It is 18% alcohol and is made right here in Montreal. I buy a bottle as a gift for my hosts, who are going to regift it this evening for the pilgrims who arrive today. Once again, it is like being an honoured member of the family. It’s a good feeling.

I am further invited to join them with a friend, Hervé, here for lunch. The friend turns out to be a seasoned pilgrim who frequently acts as a hospitalier at various gites. He has dropped in here and will be returning in a few days to give Anita a hand. Michel has been here just two weeks. He walked four weeks from the north of France to be here to help. He met Anita four years ago on the camino in Spain and have remained in touch ever since. A retired air traffic controller, he will be here for two months helping Anita establish the pattern for this gite.

Just before 6 PM, the phone rings. Anita answers it, then passes it to me, telling me; “It’s for you.” I am dumbfounded. How could anyone call me here? I scarcely know where I am. But it IS for me. It is Pierre calling me to tell me that he and Marie are safely home, that they have been reading and enjoying my blog and that they have put a couple of comments on the blog. I had not seen them so I have to go and look.

There is a joke about Condom (I did tell you that there would be tasteless jokes about Condom) and another about Alberto, my Italian travelling companion. Pierre wants to make sure that we have a solid electronic link and I couldn’t agree more. It is deeply moving for me to have this couple go to the effort of figuring out where I am, then calling me.

About 6:30, after having talked to Carroll on Skype, I and all the pilgrims here walk up to the enormous and imposing old church for a brief pilgrim ceremony, led by Anita’s friend, Hervé.

Then we come back here and the three German pilgrims sit outside and start to sing. It sounds like a missionary meeting and I foresee a long evening. But I would be wrong. They sing a couple of hymns, then they switch to Frere Jacques and the like. They just like to sing. We all, three Germans, five French pilgrims, me and our hosts sit outside and break out the fortified wine that I bought this morning. I discover that not only is this wine local, we can see on the distant crest, the actual farm where the wine is made.

The Germans don’t speak much French, the French no German, so God help us all, I am enlisted as the translator between the two groups. Scary. We each have a little shot and make toasts to the chemin, to our various countries and to the peace between them.

Dinner proceeds at the same happy pace, lots of laughter and bad translations. One of the people has been to Canada and visited friends in Vernon, BC. Bear stories appear and I try, with appallingly little success, to tell the joke of how to tell regular bear scat from grizzly scat. It’s the bells. After dessert we are all out of the dining area by nine, including me. It’s off to bed for a 17 or 18 kilometre walk tomorrow to Eauze, pronounced AYooze.

I am out of the gite by 8 AM. The other pilgrims tell me that they had a poor sleep last night because of the noise. Even I could hear it. It takes me about 40 minutes to walk out of Condom and it is an amazing, amusing and horrifying walk. As I walk through the centre of the town, I see at least a dozen young men who are in really advanced stages of drunkenness. I see one whose stance against a wall reminds me of the scene in Cat Ballou in which the gunslinger, on his horse, is leaning against a wall, completely drunk. The evidence of a really big party is all around.

The local authorities have barricaded the whole of the city centre to keep people safe from vehicle traffic, although nothing can keep them from self-inflicted damage. These guys aren’t aggressive, they are in fact quite friendly and when they are able to focus on me, wish me; “Bon courage” or “Bon chemin”. As is quite usual, the signage for the chemin is less conspicuous in the town, so I have to keep asking if I am on the right route. The tables are turned once when one of the drunks asks me if this is the chemin de Saint Jacques and I tell him that I hope so, but I don’t know.

Out of town, the countryside is gently rolling hills, the farms look prosperous, there is haying going on, the strawberries are already ripe and in the stores, the barley is high.

It is overcast and cool with a haze that supports my guess that humidity is close to 100 percent. I have refilled my water bag and sip from it every time I think of it. I have my hat attached to my belt, since there is no sun and it’s cooler with the hat off.

I meet Alberto soon after I leave Condom and we walk together for the day. He is companionable and sufficiently garrulous that I don’t have to carry my end of the conversation. Yesterday, Pierre and Marie said about him, with fondness; “Alberto is SO Italian”. He tells me at one point that the Italian term for the scallop shell, a symbol of the pilgrim’s walk, is “La concha”, which he also explains, in passing, is the less formal Italian term for female genitalia. It creates quite a vivid image for me.

We walk past vineyards and at one point, I see a man checking his vines and I ask him, naively, what kind of wine does he make. It’s the kind of question that must make a winemaker’s hair turn grey. He responds, after a pause to think of an appropriate answer to a dumb question; “Vins de Gascoyne, the best wines in France”. He produces both red and rosé and it looks to be a good year.

We arrive in Montréal-de-Gers about 1 PM, find our gite, deposit our backpacks (it opens for pilgrims at 2) and walk back 100 yards to the town square where there is a bar with outdoor seating under an old arcade. We have a little aperitif and wait until 2, being entertained by a small group of young men, clearly survivors of last night’s bacchanalia in Condom. According to the bar owner, they have been here for several hours, drinking. That is perfectly obvious.

They are loud, boisterous but not obnoxious. Just before 2 they leave to go to their car and drive – horrors, they can barely walk – back to Condom for more revelry. I am so glad that I am not there. I have never been fond of groups of drunks because they can get nasty so quickly and for no reason apparent to anyone but them. As they walk away, one of them has his pants down around his knees and is mooning, probably inadvertently, scandalised little old ladies. I say inadvertently because I doubt he or any of the group could form a coherent intention.

At 2 we return to the gite and get our beds. Since we are the first here, we get our choice. I pick a lower bunk with a window shelf next to it. That gives me a place to put small but critical bits of gear, such as my hearing aids, at night. Better than on the floor where I might step on them as I make my nightly trip to the john. Alberto picks the bunk above mine.

The place is lovely. It’s on the edge of town, up high – actually it’s hard not to be on the edge of town – with a view over farmer’s fields, woods and a couple of small villages or large homesteads. There is a tractor cutting hay in the distance. It is the only noise besides birdsong.

One of my first moves is to ask if I can stay here another night. They are happy and obliging. It turns out – this is a newly-opened gite, only 6 weeks – that I am the first pilgrim to ask to stay over for two nights. The owner, Anita, is German, indeterminate age, speaks French with a delightful lilt. She walked the camino three years ago, then decided that she wanted to open a gite. But she had little money, only a flat in Spain, worked two years at various gites in St. Jean Pied de Port to learn how to operate a gite. She would have liked to sell her flat but the economy was dreadful. Then out of the blue she got a call from a neighbour. Someone wanted to buy her flat. She sold it and that gave her enough money to buy this place and open the gite.

Late in the day two young Norwegian women arrive, both 24, both in teacher training. They are Anna and Tone – pronounced approximately Toone. I tell them about my love affair with Norway and they tell me about their experiences on the chemin. They are walking from Le Puy to Santiago and have planned 10 weeks to do it. They tell me about being in the snowfields on the Aubrac plateau and realising, even for Norwegians and used to winter conditions, that this was a very dangerous place to be. They got lost one day for three hours and were very concerned. I am surprised that no-one died up there. Over the past three weeks I have heard a number of real horror stories about the conditions there. When I was driven through in a taxi, it looked like a scene from Napoleon’s winter retreat from Moscow.

I ask them about the mass killing in Oslo and Anna tells me that her mother, who is a priest, lives very near the island where most of the killing took place and went there to help immediately after the killing. There was not a lot that she could do except console the survivors. They are both very proud to be Norwegians, as they should be, and tell me that the population has just passed five million.

We enjoy a lovely dinner, all 13 of us and get to bed in good time. Everyone except me will be leaving in the morning. Alberto will walk for a few more days, then take a train to Spain and walk the Camino del Norte along the northern coast.

It dawns warm and sunny, should be a good day for walking. It is lovely in the morning, gets a bit oppressive in the afternoon. As we leave Marsolan, Phillipe walks with us for a few hundred metres to make sure that we are on the right road. There are at least three ways to get to Condom from here. The first is a direct walk for 17 kilometres on the road, no place for food or water along the way. The second is via the chemin, about 23 kilometres, wandering over hill and dale, much like a dog’s random trail as it tracks down fascinating smells.

The third, which Phillipe recommends, is a compromise between the two. It is about 20 kilometres, through La Romieu, which has places for food and drink and is also, he tells us, the village of cats. He does not explain further, says it will be obvious. As we are standing at the point where we depart, along comes Alberto, an Italian with whom we have spending some time the past few days. We say goodbye to Phillipe and head off, four of us, on the quiet road to La Romieu.

We are here in about 90 minutes and it is indeed the village of cats. I had imagined a village full of little old ladies with their 27 cats each. I couldn’t be more wrong. There is not a live cat to be seen. What there is is whimsical sculptures of cats more than lifesize, on windowsills, disappearing into or emerging from little crannies in the walls. There are more than a dozen just in this one small square where we are sitting having a coffee. Along comes Nicolas, who has been camping in his tent on the way. He tells us that he cannot sleep unless it is perfectly quiet, so a dortoir in a gite does not work for him at all. We leave him sitting in La .

At La Romieu, we have sandwiches made for later in an epicerie, the usual butter, ham and cheese on a perfectly wonderful piece of bread. We walk on towards Condom, as it starts to get hot and oppressive. My clothes are soaking wet with sweat … again. I have filled my 3-litre soft plastic water bottle at Marsolan and it is a good thing. It is empty just as we reach Condom. As we walk, we talk. Marie tells me about her children. The youngest, 7, is concerned about her mother’s absence for 10 days. Marie’s solution is to prepare a small wooden box of kisses, one for each day, every one a piece of paper with a lipstick kiss and some words of comfort. She says that the kisses are working well.

She also tells me some of Pierre’s background. He had a brother, two years older, who died two years ago at age 48, Pierre’s age now, of heart failure. The brother was also schizophrenic, although that did not figure in his death. We talk about mental illness and its devastation on all those in the extended family. I tell her about my own experiences with mental illness in the extended family.

As we get close to Condom, we have to decide how to deal with what little time we have left together. Alberto goes ahead and I know that I will see him tomorrow, since we have booked the same gite in Montreal. The Equestrian Centre where Pierre and Marie will stay is two kilometres on this side of Condom, while my gite is somewhere in the city. The decision is for all three of us to walk to my gite where I can drop my backpack, shower, then walk back with my friends to the Equestrian Centre. Just as we enter the populated part of Condom, there is a sign for my gite, 80 metres ahead. Bliss!

After getting a bed and showering and changing into clean clothes and sandals, we walk back to their accommodation, where we hope that I can get dinner. My gite does not offer it. We think that since they have 65 beds, one more mouth to feed won’t be an issue. Marie showers first while Pierre and I sit outside and enjoy a cool drink. Then she comes out, looking radiant, while Pierre has his shower. We sit and talk for a couple of hours until we are called for dinner. We are in a little dining room, just four of us – we three and another French man who speaks fluent English. He learned it in Wales. Again we sit and talk and sip on red wine until it gets dark.

I don’t want this to end and clearly neither do they. Eventually I decide that I have to leave and Pierre insists on walking back to two kilometres into town. I embrace Marie – she has tears in her eyes, as do I as we say goodbye. None of us knows where, when or if we will meet again. Pierre has a headlamp and waves it around as we walk along the edge of the busy highway.

When we arrive back at my gite, we embrace and promise to keep in touch – and we will. I ask him to give my love to Marie and he says that he does – often.Then off he goes into the dark. They leave tomorrow morning by bus back to Cahors, where they will pick up their car for the 8-hour drive back to ALsace.

Why so busy? There is a big festival in Condom this weekend. The town of less than 8,000 is more than three times its normal population. This is the 40th anniversary of this Banda festival. Banda is folk music, big bands, accordions, large noisy and energetic crowds. This festival has over time been corrupted to be a huge drunken brawl , mostly young people, mid-teens to mid-20s, for a full weekend.

The noise in the city is incredible. Even in my gite at the very edge of town, close to a kilometre from the city centre, I can hear the noise without my hearing aids. It does not keep me awake for long although it clearly has a negative effect on some of the other people trying to sleep here.

OK, I know that you want to know what is going on with Condom. First of all, the accent is on the second syllable, not the first, so it’s conDOM, not CONdom. And the word in France is préservatif. Second, guess what they make here. Well, you’re wrong,although it was a good guess. What they make here and are famous for is Armagnac, a strong liquor similar to Cognac, but unlike cognac, distilled only once.

However, catering to popular demand, there IS a museum here of population control devices. I do not visit the museum. At my age, nature pretty well takes care of that for me.

Tomorrow I am off to Montréal, where I expect to take a rest day. No, the other one, Montréal-du-Gers. It is much, much smaller and even more French. I am just short of 400 kilometres so far, so more than half-way.

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.