Guînes

Another easy day. Loving this gentle start with short days for the first week.
Meant I just chilled out in my room and didn’t get going until 11am. Gave time to digest the hotel restaurant breakfast before setting out. Loved it.

One of the rituals of this walk is the collection of the testimonium from His Holiness in Rome (or an underling if he is busy) to show anyone remotely interested what has been achieved. As this is much prized, neigh coveted, one has to prove that enough of the walk was completed. One look at the poor feet would give a fairly clear indication but the generally accepted method is to produce a pilgrim’s credential, a wee booklet which gets stamped every day. No problem at all. Just nip into the local tourist office for the needful. But my guidebook informs me that a stamp in French is called a tampon. I kid you not. Nowhere else in the book is there any indication that the writer has a sense of humour so I suppose I just have to trust him. Duly called in to the main tourist office this morning and spoke to the very attractive young lady behind the desk. Asked for a stamp. Blank look. Asked if she had a tampon while desperately showing my credential book. Seemed to work. She slapped her tampon on my book and gave me a lovely smile. Got to love this country sometimes.

Dinner tonight looked promising which was welcome because lunch didn’t happen again. Snack bar in the campsite. Large menu. Chose a risotto with turkey, chorizo etc. When it came it was some sort of frozen pre-cooked thing that had been microwaved. They didn’t even take it out of the box it came in. To add insult to injury it was tiny. Despite the pleasant enough lettuce and dressing I am still hungry. And no idea how I might get anything for breakfast. Hey ho. At least today’s rain has stopped and the sun is shining and drying out the tent.Read more