Almost back to the beginning:

 March 29th.   I wake up early on somebody’s sofa, singing in French on the radio, children’s voices in the background, the clash of coffee percolator and cups. Yann is bustling about: “I must leave in a minute, we must go together, I will lock the door.” It’s difficult to know what he means, in English or French, and I am still in a dream with Angela recording an African song in Yann’s studio. I throw my stuff together, sling a cup of coffee down and we part company outside his front door with a hearty handshake. Yann drives away to work in La Baule at 8 o’clock while I try my luck at another footpath across the fens to Sainte Reine de Bretagne. The morning is late March misty, and when I realise I’m walking on the GR3 but in the wrong direction there is a momentary feeling of utter disorientation as I look ahead at the straight way disappearing into the unknown with a lake on one side and a canal on the other. I return over the footbridge next to an old ash tree covered from head to foot in mistletoe. The crows’ harsh call is the only sound. A heron stands sentinel on one canal bank while on another I spot a large rodent, too fat for a water-rat or vole and without a beaver’s tail. It must be a coypu, which are causing much damage to the ecosystem along with freshwater crayfish. The path is wide and spongy and seems to be floating on the water, which laps the grass gently on both sides. It feels as though it could be submerged at any point but there are a couple of footbridges at susceptible places where you cross from mud to mud over a stretch of water just too wide to jump and wide enough to moor a couple of narrow flat-bottomed punts with their tapering ends. These boats are still very much in use for transporting people (and occasionally cattle in the larger ones), as well as for fishing and hunting. Everything is wet and watery and I squelch along wondering what this is actually called in English  ̶  marsh, mere, fen, bog, lake, pond, broad? The whole area is rich in reed-beds which furnish the nearby communes with good roofing thatch.

                               The people hereabouts have a unique system of local government. La Grande Briere is the joint property of the 21 communes (previously 17 parishes) which surround it, and has been since at least the time of the Merovingians. It is not part of any local authority district and has never belonged to any lord of the manor. Any inhabitant is therefore allowed to cut peat when and where they want and to organise their own independence and responsibilities. These rights have been robustly defended at times. In the early 19^th century there was an armed insurrection to proclaim their continued adherence to the Revolutionary decrees of 1791-2 which had confirmed their continued independence.

                                The days are starting to fall into a familiar pattern:

Get up and have breakfast, including as many oats as possible; set off and walk for 2-2½ hours; stop for a break of 15-20 minutes; walk for another couple of hours; stop for lunch, usually a pack-up or something I’ve been able to buy at a boulangerie on the way; walk for another 1½-2 hours; have a break; walk for another hour and a half or so, depending on how far I have to go to get to a place to stay the night; find a place to stay if not already booked; have a shower; wash my clothes; find somewhere to eat and drink a beer (or vice versa); try to get online to find lodgings for the next few nights; read something; sleep.

Within this pattern there are other rhythms. One of them is to do with looking: I find myself alternating between short-distance vision, which is to say looking at my feet and the immediate obstacles on the path; medium-distance, or seeing the plants, houses or whatever else is beside the path and up to about fifty yards in any direction; and long-distance, which is the horizon or anything just short of it. There’s also a left/right pattern and a river/not river one. Then there’s an up/down rhythm, but I tend to be looking ahead or down most of the time and have to remind myself to look up at the clouds. The other thing with that one is you have to stop walking to appreciate the skyscape for any length of time, and I have a tendency to be wanting to press on once I’m in my stride. There are already enough reasons to stop, especially in wet or changeable weather, and not just for food and water. It’s mainly to look at a map or relieve your bladder or make a note or take a photo or (most often) to adjust your clothing because you’re too hot/cold/wet/uncomfortable. The other principal rhythm could be called inner and outer, because you’re doing such a repetitive task all day but you’re constantly moving through an ever-changing environment, so you’re always jumping between seeing and thinking, by which I mean day-dreaming, planning, anticipating, remembering, singing….

NB I’m starting to get through a lot of Compeed plasters as they tend to curl up at the ends and form little lumps of gristle to stand on or rub against.