Saturday 28th Aire sur l'adour to Arzc

Our breakfast this morning is a real surprise. The table is in the dining room- again a large room with a magnificent long table all set for the hungry hoarders. The main decoration on the table is a large vase of holly with the red berries. I have noticed this growing in the woods the past couple of days and been surprised as the bushes all have their red berries- this to me this is the traditional Christmas theme and it seems very strange to be seeing this now in October. The lady said that it was very early and apparently it is a sign that it will be a cold winter- again this is strange as so far the autumn for us has been very warm.
The walls of the room are decorated with a stuffed boars head and a stuffed deer head peering down at us as we munch our bread. There are two rows of shiny brass moulds in different shapes that are used to make a particular cake of the region - obviously all from an old collection and then the lamps with the stands of arching black female shapes on the mantelpiece. But what takes our attention is the raging fire that Madame has lit. Unfortunately she forgot to open some lever so the dining room is full of smoke and its actually not very cold but the effect is good. I can't remember the last time I have had breakfast in front of a fire.
Our boots are in the boot room downstairs off from the kitchen so we pad around the house in our socks. Going back up the curving stairway and down the hallway of its highly polished wooden floors I suddenly get an urge to try some sliding along the hall in my socks- believe it or not I was able to achieve quite a glide. I can't help but think of the amount of fun you would have as a child running amok here in socks! These beautiful old French homes are a real treat and it's been eye opening being able to stay in them.
The sunrise is striking and I loved seeing the sun slowly rise above the fields. It creates wonderful effects with the light and the different plants- corn stalks, sunflowers, the grasses. Within 30 minutes though the clouds have arrived and the curtains are drawn over so I am glad I got to witness this beautiful scene. The walk is nice in the fresh morning air.
It is a different day again to yesterday which was flat and a bit monotonous. There is variety today with rolling hills, lovely cows again, more duckling farms ( with different sized ducklings) the cutest little lamb pushing its mother around in order to get its breakfast and more corn fields. I watch also a mother cow licking her young calf and am amazed by the strength of her long thick tongue. It reminds me unfortunately of what I saw yesterday in the delicatessen display in the meat section- a big thick tongue. G tells me that it does taste nice.

The morning coffee is particularly welcome after a big climb and a feeling of being hot and sweaty. I love the feeling when you arrive at a village but you don't know what you are going to receive. Sometimes, like yesterday it was just a nice picnic table, toilets and water. This morning in this great little location called Pimbo ( love that name) there is a great cafe/restaurant with great pain raisins ( the pastry we call snails) As we sit there refreshing ourselves with coffee we are treated to the midday bells from the church right next to us. I notice the provision of yet another defibrillator on the wall. This is often evident and even in this little village this lifesaver is provided. After the long slog up the hill I am not surprised that they thought it was necessary. The nice treat of coffee and pastry is offset in the next ten minutes after we leave by the particularly nasty descent which is extremely painful for G's knees and ankles and means he has a lot of pain for the rest of the day.

Now that we have passed the 4 week mark he is finding that the joints have taken a battering. Today's stage and the next couple of stages are over 30 kms which we acknowledge is too much. We are comfortable with 20kms carrying all our gear, so in order to achieve the day's objective we will get a car to get us to the 10km mark and then we will carry on from there. We are coming across quite a lot of people who are doing the same but hitch hiking instead. I think the fact that we are two with two back packs and limited language skills means it probably isn't a good idea for us. We want to be able to still get to the end of the route in St Jean Pied de Porte by walking each day ( even if it is not all the kilometres) as there is less than a week to go before we finish.

We arrive in the town and sit in the warm sunshine outside a bar drinking a little drop of Kir ( a sweet wine) while the young men inside enjoy watching the rugby inside. I am amused by the different posters on the window of the bar promoting the next bull fight, the next game of something that sort of resembles squash but has a huge big cup thing to catch the ball and the players all wear helmets as the ball travels very fast.
We wander off down the street to find out accomodation. All we know is the name of the square but no number- with the look of where are we we gaze about us. We are saved by a lady who comes out in the street. She is expecting three pelerins but is confused as we are only two(Vincent is walking the whole way and has not arrived as of yet) once we are able to confirm that indeed it is us we are warmly greeted and given coffee and a long chat - the couple are lovely and so welcoming.
The good thing is that the hosts also provide the dinner so we are not forced to head off walking again tonight.
Dinner is vegetable soup, homemade pâté de compaigne, bread, rice salad with home grown vegetables, two fried eggs with a sausage, pasta and then stewed apple with a chocolate chip cookie, accompanied by wine. It's so much food that I opt out of the pasta. Apparently the French do not offer eggs at all for breakfast but it was weird to see it being offered for dinner.
The host is an ex farmer ( mainly to raise cattle) but he still has access to his farm where he grows his own vegetables, maintains an orchard and has chickens for his fresh eggs. I wish I had the language skills to talk to him as he would be able to answer a lot of my farm queries that have grown over the past few weeks.