I had a broken night with my ankle, but managed to get myself in and out of a bath safely. The trouble with my booted ankle was not only was it still rather painful, but it made getting myself around a very slow business.

I had breakfast and then packed up my bags and headed for the station. There was some time to wait until my train, and some thirty minutes before it was due to depart the station was evacuated.

I think it was something to do with someone leaving their luggage unattended. When we were finally let back in there wasn’t a lot of time to find my train and the right coach and so forth, but I was just about settled when the TGV set off for Paris.

We got to Gare Montparnasse in two and a half hours, and a most efficient taxi driver avoided the day’s protest demonstrations and deposited me at the Gare du Nord. Thence by Eurostar to London, and after a short gap to Newark, where Laurence picked me up at 8.30pm.

Despite using taxis for transfers I had managed to walk nearly 8,000 steps, and my injured foot was really swollen. Bath, painkillers and bed.

Apart from the unfortunate end, this has been a delightful section of the Camino. Périgord is exceptionally beautiful, and much walking was on paths and tracks and green lanes. Spring also made every day like a kind of nature walk, with a different succession of beasts, birds and insects making their presence felt on each section of the route. I especially loved hearing cuckoos every day, before the time we are used to hearing them in England. Waymarking was very clear, and made finding the path easy.

I have now walked about 339 miles, further than the distance from London to Edinburgh. I also have a much better sense of what is manageable. On this trip I averaged just over 23 kilometres a day, or nearly fifteen miles. I never walked less than eleven miles, nor more than nineteen. Those are my comfortable limits, and I shall stick to them.

I have already worked out my September plans, length of daily walks being coordinated with availability of accommodation. By the end of next year’s first walk I should be in Spain.

In all the practicalities of carrying your life in a rucksack for a couple of weeks there is also a lot of space for prayer and reflection, and plenty of time to let one’s memory and imagination roam where they will, freed from the demands of daily life. It is a blessing.