There are many things about the French Health Service that are admirable. At the level of emergency departments they act fast. Their triaging is much better than ours. They are less stuffy, and doctors, nurses and para-medics are all much nearer to the patients, and they all pitch in. If you have a question that the nurse can’t answer, as often as not the doctor is around and pops by with the answer. It sort of feels more joined up.

The downside is a kind of ruthless thoroughness. Once through triage, the investigations start. They get you on a trolley, take your clothes off so you can’t escape, and then get going. Temperature frequently, bloods (comprehensive), ECGs (x3), and blood pressure. Just for good measure they get a line into you and a saline drip up.

All this fine, except they leave you attached to all these things ALL NIGHT. The blood pressure cuff took my BP automatically every three hours – try sleeping through that! I even had one of those oximeters on my finger all night. So you can’t move from bed. It was not conducive to sleep. But all that was as nothing besides their kindness.

The medical upshot is that my symptoms were probably brought on by over-exertion after a recent bout of COVID. All the basics seem to be as sound as I could hope for. But the doctor was very relieved to hear that I had already decided I needed to get home and rest, and she didn’t need to apply pressure. She let me go.

Because of previous bookings, it makes most sense to make my way home in a stately fashion. So this unwinding of pilgrimage started with a train journey from Langon to Bordeaux, and then a TGV south to Bayonne.

This border city, a bastion of France against the English and the Spanish for centuries, is an absolute delight. Its old town is full of delightfully colourful half-timbered buildings.

It has a lot of pedestrianised streets, and a thriving shopping and cafe culture.

And crowning it all is the Cathedral of   Our Lady, with its twin western spires. And what a beauty she is!

I had crawled into my hotel after the train journey and conked out for an hour or so, but I was so glad to have gone out into Bayonne old town. All that beauty felt like a blessing, and in the cathedral the elderly lady on the desk (rare customer care in a French cathedral!) was pleased to stamp my pilgrim passport. I could have wept.

Even though I have needed to stop for now, it felt like I was being reminded that my pilgrim days are not over. And part of pilgrimage is learning the lessons you need to learn: and this time I have needed to learn and to practise listening to my body.

After an hour or so’s rest back at the hotel, I went back over the bridge to find some food. Now the sun was out, and Bayonne looked wonderful.

Tomorrow, Paris.