I have definitely come to a halt. The last place I walked to (Pouilly sur Loire of Pouilly Fume fame) has a plaque on the bridge claiming to be at the precise halfway point between the source and mouth of the river. Being unable to find a decent place to stay there I got a train back to Cosne and stayed at the same hotel, run by a charming couple who have recently taken it over after moving from Paris. That was on Thursday when it started raining and the forecast is for rain until Tuesday. Since I woke up yesterday with a very painful leg I decided to stay as long as it takes to get back in shape, but by the afternoon was thinking 'Can it get any worse?' after getting soaked hobbling around looking for a hospital which didn't exist, or at least not on that side of town. That's the last time I try looking for somewhere using a GPS app. The trouble was there was nobody about to ask - it was May 1st and a public holiday so by that time everyone was either out visiting their relatives or at home en famille. There had been people about in the morning when I went looking for a clinic (which was closed) but the only shops open were boulangeries and fleuristes. Every flower shop in town was open and every street corner had a flower-seller with a little box of bunches of muglis: it's just what everyone does on May 1st, sit outside in the rain selling flowers... I finally got out of Cosnes and made my way to La Charite, which is a bit like a French version of hay-on-wye.They call it the town of words, and many buildings have quotations inscribed upon their walls. It did get worse: I have had to temporarily scrap my phone which gave up the ghost after that soaking and get a new one which has an even smaller keyboard. I have lost all my phone contacts and also the record of the trip so far, which I had been carefully tracking with a special app. This made me very despondent for several days but at least I can keep in touch by blog again for the time being. Today I almost stood on a large snake. Probably a grass snake but big, about 3 or4 feet long. There are also many lizards about and this evening I heard the first cricket. This is getting too tiring

Hello folks It's the end of another long day at walk and it's beginning to get tiring, especially after getting soaked in a thunderstorm. I thought I had lost the plot when I phoned a guest house owner who told me yes he had a spare room and would come and meet me outside the Mairie where I was standing in the rain, then nobody came so I rang again and he said 'where were you? I've just been to the Mairie and you weren't there ' We tried again with the same result and I finally triggered that he was in a different village with the same name about 3 day's walk away. Hmmm... New post available very soon. PS Apologies to all those I painstakingly copied into an emailable group: it just hasn't worked every time I've tried.