After lovely weather yesterday, I was hoping for a bit more of the same. So you can imagine what I thought when I saw this.
However, despite moving my wet weather gear to accessible bits of my rucksack, the cloud lightened up and the day settled into being just overcast. Perfect for walking, in fact. I was away by 07.45, stopping only for a bit of bread at the boulangerie.
The route took me out on roads to meet up with the official route, some three kms south. Just good time to say morning prayer and then to give a proper listen to a new recording of psalms from St John’s College, Cambridge
It may be a bit mannered for some, but it is really beautiful, expressive singing, extremely sensitive to the text, which is superbly clear. Also there is the pleasure of hearing Ashfield’s wonderful triple chant. Anyway, it made for some great meditative walking.
On rejoining the route, the path struck out across some lovely country paths. A bit twisty and turn with some decent contours, really delightful. Then into broadleaf forest, where I made two discoveries.
In a forest clearing, a circle of beehives. Miles from any dwellings, but someone was clearly tending them. Bee-keeping is one of those activities that speaks to me of harmonious collaboration between man and nature, and I found it heartening to find this example in an unexpected place.
The other discovery was grim.
Information near the memorial revealed that Marius and Camille were seventeen and twenty-three, respectively, and that they were tortured all night before being executed. Unimaginable horror. Of course, it is ancient history to people born this century, but it is still going on, dismally, day after day, and year after year, all over the planet, leaving an enormous slough of distress, anger and brokenness, like one of those huge and ever-expanding agglomerations of plastic rubbish disfiguring the oceans. I prayed for them and theirs, and for peace.
A little further on I had a break. It was 09.45 and I had already done nearly half my days walk. So I took my time, ate an orange and did some stretches. Suitably revived, I set off again.
The second half had quite a bit of rather unpleasant road walking on a busy main road. There was no danger, but it was quite noisy, so I put in my ear buds and put on Rossini’s Barber of Seville. It is such positive, jolly music it made the miles fly by. After a while I was back on paths again, and one bit was very overgrown indeed. If it had rained in the last few days I would have been drenched again! Luckily, it was quite dry, and long trousers kept me protected from the abundant nettles. Rossini’s first act lasted exactly until I arrived in Déols, all but one or two kilometres from the end of my day’s walk.
It was 13:30 by now, so after a celebratory beer, I had my picnic and then went to look at the ruins of the great Cluniac Abbey.
All that is left of this once great Benedictine abbey is one of the four towers that surrounded the central tower. Founded in 917, it was one of the largest abbeys in France. Its choir was pulled down by protestants in the 1560s wars of religion, and in the 17C the Prince of Condé persuaded the Pope, with the agreement of Louis XIII, to deconsecrate the Abbey and turn it into a quarry.
Above you can see the remains of the piers of the seventeenth century bridge that was built across the river Indre, all made with stones from the Abbey. I found the Abbey ruins a sad place. It is so much easier to tear down than to build or conserve.
Two kms more and I was at my lodgings for the night. Tomorrow, I have some time to rest, and to reflect on this first stage of this journey.
From The Quire 