Friday, June 18, 2010

Day 35. The Great Koala Escape




Did I mention yesterday that when I clocked up the 1,000 kms, this was, with my stride of 0.80 of a metre, my 1,250,000th step of VBW? That is 625,000 steps with each foot, including the left, arthritic one, which is increasingly making me aware of all the hard work it is doing

Today I felt tired while walking. Maybe this was a bit of anti-climax from yesterday – after all, I still have half the walk to do. Or maybe it was just a tired day – I have mentioned before that some days I feel tired, most days I do not. Mark Knopfler put it very well when he wrote “Some days you’re the windscreen, some days you’re the bug”. I know exactly what he meant.

It seemed as if it was going to be a day without a coffee stop, but as I pulled into Montreuil-le-Chétif I spied a combined épicerie and bar-tabac, where I enjoyed a coffee and a very nice croissant in the smallest bar I have seen in France -3 tables. I felt amazingly rejuvenated by this experience so that the second half of the walk was much more frisky than the first half.

At Douillet-le-Joly (which reminded me of Ang Dooley, our Ozzie friend and neighbour, who is a very jolly person) I saw this interesting garden, with the birdwatcher peeping out of the hedge. The garden was also replete with bears, horses and other large ornaments. I have noticed during the past 35 days that the French are very fond of filling their gardens with fake animals, geese, ducks, rabbits and other not very wild life – what’s that all about?

When I reached Sougé-le-Ganelon (don’t you just love these names – it was worth today’s walk, just to be able to say I have been to this place), today’s terminus, I realised that I have at last lost the koala which Ang and Paul gave me as I left home. A few days ago it lost its boomerang, which did not come back, and now I feel it has leapt from the brim of my hat in Dooley-the-Jolly, probably because it felt it had reached home. Sorry, Ang and Paul. I will now revert to the backup kangaroo.

Gay picked me up in Sougé-le-Ganelon (I just can’t stop saying it) and we came to the campsite in St. Leonard-des-Bois, where I am not sure if the telephone signal is strong enough to load the photographs.

And that marks the end of the fifth week and the first half of Vic’s Big Walk For Pancreatic Cancer UK.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well done on both challenge and the cause.