Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow ...

No walking today. We were soaked while out yesterday morning and the rain has not stopped since. We don't have the appropriate kit with us to counter that, having travelled with Mr Ryanair and his "hand baggage only or you pay lots for checked luggage" policy.

So It is a cowering indoors type of day. The rain is scheduled to continue falling until after we leave tomorrow morning. We fly from Rome to Girona then drive home, from Spain to France and from the coast to the mountains. It could be an interesting journey . I understand that at home it is thick with snow, with more forecast to fall before we arrive.

I am hoping the snow does not stick around too long. Hopefully I will pack in a few more kilometres before the end of the year.

Etruscan Walking

I have managed to squeeze in almost 80 kms of walking this week, despite our transfer to Italy for the second half.

History is so visible here. Just outside my daughter's garden is the ruin of an Etruscan building. I say ruin, but it is a very solid looking piece of work, which has been there for at least 3,000 years and will probably still be there in 5,000 CE.

The Etruscan civilisation is one of many that Rome conquered and absorbed during its ascendancy. It is said that almost no aspects of the Roman civilisation were originally their own. Clearly the renowned durability of Roman building is something they picked up from the Etruscans.

East is East and West is West

I have managed to pack a few walks into this week, but tomorrow it is back to another mode of transport, the great silver bird. We are travelling east but are confused because the picture above is of our Italian family, who look distinctly western, do they not?

The good news is that we have received our new modem and now have full connection with the outside world.

Little Versailles

It seems ages, so it probably is, since I did a walk of more than 30 kms. I rectified that today by walking from Mirepoix to Puivert, a distance of 33 kms.

After the first few yards of track, where I saw a woman with a dog, I saw nobody until I was in the middle of Chalabre, 23 kms later.

This view, snapped from the Voie Verte, the old railway track, is of the Chateau Lagarde with a backdrop of snowcapped Pyrenees. According to an information board it was known as the “little Versailles of the Languedoc”. It was certainly massive, but has been in ruins for some time.

The placard, which is not new, says that work is going on to restore it to its former glory.

Hurdles

A break in this week's atrocious weather has given us a couple of fine days. It has also given me a chance to sneak in a couple of 18 kms walks.

This means I have been able to salvage 52 kms from what looked like being a walkless week, replete with hurdles both meteorological and medical.

Not much of a total for a Big Walker, but more than the average bear, methinks.

I seem to be heading for a total of not much more than 4,500 kms for the full year, which is probably a decent grounding for the Big One next year.

Meeting Some Resistance

I have not been for a walk in the past 7 days. This has been due to two factors. The first is that almost every day since then has been spent at one hospital or doctor, either for my eyes or Gay’s back.

The other is the weather. It is 3 degrees outside and lashing down with rain. A couple of hundred metres above us it is falling as snow. This is of benefit to some – 23 ski stations in the Pyrenees are opening this weekend because of the received bounty from the sky.

Of course they are also higher than we are. One of my walks last week with my baby brother started up on the Plateau de Sault, where some of the ski stations are situated. On our way back from a shopping trip to Andorra, Gay dropped Septimus Willem and myself at Espezel for a 20 kms walk home.

We deliberately diverted to the site of the Maquis du Picaussel. Here 400 members of the French Resistance camped out during the German occupation of World War II. They were supplied with weapons and sustenance by the RAF. From that height (over 1000 metres) they (the resistance, not the RAF) could see if the Wehrmacht made a move in their direction and this kept them safe throughout the war.

The Wehrmacht were not too pleased about this, so, at the last moment, as the Allies advanced and the Germans were in retreat, they decided to teach the Maquis a lesson. It was too much trouble to try to find them on the plateau (why did they not bomb them?) so they destroyed the town of Lescale a few hundred metres below.

Our walk took us via the memorial building at the Maquis camp, on a scramble downhill to Lescale, then on quiet roads back to Puivert.

The Bright Lights Of Toulouse

Last week’s yomping with SW took me over 4,200 kms for the year so far.

This week I have not yet done much walking. Monday was spent at the hospital in Toulouse, about my eyes. In fact two hospitals because I was sent to a third one. The particular combination of problems in my eyes is causing some consternation in the medical fraternity.

After becoming familiar with a huge variety of machines, most of them involving very bright lights and numerous doctors (3 on Monday alone), I have now been given a very clear picture. I have a problem in both retinas for which there is no treatment, anywhere in the world. It will get worse. I also have cataracts on both eyes but they are not yet bad enough to take any action and in any case the other problem is the one causing me visual problems – cataract operations would not give me any perceivable benefit. New spectacles would similarly be of no use to me. There are some special Omega 3 capsules which may slow the degradation by 40%.

Not so good, then. But within the last week we read about the first successful retina transplant (or was it an artificial retina?), just completed. Conveniently, it was in France.

Tuesday morning we were at a different hospital – this time for Gay’s back. As we drove into Quillan it was raining heavily (also yesterday). As we returned, the rain stopped for a while to reveal the hills all around, covered in snow which is now well below 1000 metres (we live at 500 metres).

We are still without an Internet connection at home.