3 Mar

Walked another 25 kilometres, from Boisse-Penchot to Figeac. Making a total of 181 kilometres.
One week walking: 181 kilometres. With this average I’ll be in Santiago in eight weeks.
Counted my blisters after one week. Zero, nada, nothing. But even without blisters it doesn’t mean there’s no suffering. My heels are a little sore and I’ve never been more aware of my knees than in the past days.
But suffering is part of the experience I suppose. I didn’t know what I could expect from walking such a long distance. I had walked good distances on one day, but never any serious distances in sequence, let alone for eight weeks. The good news is that my knees, when I combine the pain of the two, are not getting worse. My right knee is in fact getting better, while my left knee is reaching the state of my right knee three days ago. It all balances out at the end, like one should expect from someone who was able to get a zero (a fat F) at his first bookkeeping exam. Although I had somehow balanced every question, I had not used an acceptable technique to achieve that somehow. It was the most impressive creative accounting the professor had ever seen, he claimed. ‘It might make you a millionaire, but you won’t get your degree this way.’ I studied the basics of accounting, passed the next time and never got to be a millionaire.
I always think of eating asparagus, when something is a little hard. We’re talking here about white asparagus, the king of all vegetables. Before you can eat them, they need to be peeled quite carefully. But when that is taken care of the result is – when cooked right – divine. Labor intensive cooking, I call it. Slow cooking. It is stimulated by the Aga and I prefer it under all circumstances.
Today was not very difficult, also because I had already walked the hardest part of today’s journey yesterday. But then it started raining. Sometimes turning into an icy rain. It was tough again. I am realizing that every day I expect things to improve, and then something happens to make it hard again. But I think that is like me, always underestimating the troubles ahead.
While walking I saw two woman a few hundred metres ahead of me. They were also going to Santiago, I could see. One of them wore a shell on her back, just like I have. When I had almost met them, my route – the official Grande Randonnee (GR) route – turned to the right, while these women walked straight on. This happened a few times. My route was swirling around the straight road to Figeac and sometimes I would see them plowing on on the main road, one always 15 yards in front of the other.
I have read somewhere that there is a big controversy about using these GR walks as a pilgrimage rout. The GR path creators prefer to have walks through nature and do not want to go through too many towns and cities. The pilgrims of the past preferred the fasted routes and had to go through towns, because that’s where the churches and relics were they needed to relieve their sins.
I am so glad with the GR creators. Not only are the paths beautiful, but they are also very clearly marked. Haven’t made a mistake once in the first week. Even in well marked England I would get lost sometimes. It just takes a few minutes of thinking about something else, and one is lost. But I must be so paranoid about loosing my way, that I am alert enough to prevent it.
Maybe these women are from the straighter pilgrimage sort. It might also be that they simply didn’t want to slide up and down the rural paths. Although the path wasn’t very steep – nothing compared to yesterday – the rain made even the faintest of hills into a mudslide.
Sliding over the hills, getting intensely cold because of the icy rain I was glad to reach Figeac. Tonight I will go and pick up Han from the train station and we will walk three days together. Hope for him the weather improves. Also for myself, in fact. 1271 kilometres to go.