13 mar

Walked another 34 kilometres, from Nogaro to La Boue. Making a total of 516 kilometres.
Those were not happy kilometres. My shin hurts. My right one. Why that starts to happen after about 500 kilometres beats me. Maybe it is a little bit like with a car. Everything works for a while, but after x amount of kilometres your timing belt will snap. Or something like that.
I know I got a little too enthusiastic in the past days. Especially sunday, walking 30 kilometres in less than five hours. Should not have done that. Am pacing myself now, partly because I have to. Slow down, I’ll say to myself, take it easy. And it works till the moment I start thinking about something else.
Was in a supermarket at the end of the day and started to look for some cream to ease the muscles. Then thought of buying a bag of ice cubes. Finally figured that frozen peas also would do the trick. And they did. Guess we’ll eat a lot of peas the coming days, because it is a process that will need to be repeated a few times.
I had a pleasant dog experience today. Which makes this a special day, because me and dogs, that is not an easy relationship. All that barking. I find it representative of some very low level alpha behaviour. Why not tweet like birds, or croak like frogs. I am sure dogs do not play a very respectable role in Animal Farm.
I have lots of friends with dogs and I do not want to offend them, but in general – this is, my friends are the exceptions – owning a dog brings out the bully in the owner. Those dogs bark at strangers but they get quiet when boss X says so. Or they do this or that. They always have to do things, dogs, and when they do them they get praised.
I don’t like that. I mean, I have my wife, and she has me, for our barking orders. And that’s enough for that.
But today I was having my lunch – an apple, a banana and a piece of baguette – when a dog walked up to me and laid next to me. This happened while another dog, in a fenced-off yard close by, was barking its head off. The dog that came and laid with me just sighed a few times. And then left without saying goodbye after about ten minutes.
The only other good dog experience from this trip was a few days ago. In fact it was just outside Condom. This pretty hairy and goodhearted dog came walking up to me and then started following me. Again, no barking. He followed me for a few kilometres. I was starting to wonder what we would have to do during the night, what food he needed, if he needed a vaccine for Britain. But then he saw the sign of the town of Condom and he turned around. Again, without saying goodbye.
I like that. And it makes me a little less antagonistic against the species. But my favourite they’ll never be. Or Julie must not let me boss her around anymore.
Julie went to Lourdes today to meet Bernadette. Those saints on drugs that see Maria are not really my cup of tea, but I think it is rather wonderful that all these sick people want to meet each other there. And then this funny habit of taking a bath in water that only gets cleaned once a day. As the dutch writer Gerard Reve said; The real wonder is not that people get cured in Lourdes, which they don’t, at least not in a way that would be provable, the real wonder is they don’t get sick.
Meeting up with Julie afterwards was not easy. I had followed the Road to Santiago a little bit south of Aire sur l’Adour, so I didn’t have to walk so much tomorrow. But the road where I wanted to meet Julie – south of a large lake – was tiny, so tiny in fact Julie couldn’t find it. Especially not after it got dark. So at one point I said I would walk to the north part of the lake, where there was a more accessible parking lot. It had gotten dark and several of the amorous couples of Aire sur L’Adour (which has a romantic sound to it) had found themselves cosy spots next to the lake and were wholly unprepared for this tall dutchmen plowing past them. First I said bonsoir a few times, but after two couples just grumbled, I quit that. It is a strange habit anyway to greet each other when you can hardly see the other one. And they had more important things to do.
Tomorrow I’ll cheat a little more, have seen enough of this lake. Another 932 kilometres to go. With the next 7 days in glorious weather, if our unreliable weatherman can be trusted. In one week we’ll be in Spain. It’s getting serious.