Day Three
The tolling church bells herald our farewell as we poke our noses outside. There is a light rain falling and the cloud covers us like a blanket. We are about to set out for what will prove to be a very challenging day. We have all our rain gear on and luckily I can use George's water proof camera as the sights looking back down at the village as we climb are worth recording, as is the various mushrooms and flowers of different colours. I climb part of the hill in the company of a young Swiss girl who has a week off work, has driven to Le Puy and will walk for the 7 days before returning to Geneva. It helps make the hills more manageable when you have this chance of making new acquaintances and hearing their tales. One of the tales of last night was that of one of the French gentleman at our dinner table whose wife is a hairdresser in Paris and gets to look after the King of Morocco' s beard when he comes to the city. In return they have been accommodated at the royal palace in Morocco.
At the ascent we stand above the clouds and I exchange translation with another French lady. She wanted to know the English word 'rainbow' so in return she told me the French word - arc en ciel. We both stood together overlooking all the clouds and have expected a rainbow arc en ciel to turn up. I was rather astonished when we entered the next little town that the first advertising I saw was for a 'arc en ciel ' childcare centre.
Have I mentioned that there are a lot of hills on this route and today we are to meet a very big hill that goes both up and down - it is extremely testing - but it is the going down that is excruciating - on the knee pressure Richter scale it was going off the charts. We arrived in Sagues where we had decided we wouldn't stay but head off to a little village some 10kms away and we could hear the bad Camino fairy whispering in our ear the word 'taxi taxi' and us replying 'oh yes please' , but after a stop off in a bar for sustenance and hearing the good Camino fairy saying 'you can do it' we strode( no I mean we hobbled) off to complete the day. The Camino gods were kind to us as the next 10kms were relatively gentle and we were able to use our own two legs and not resort to the taxi.

The sound of dogs barking means several things. It can mean that they are showing off to their master that they are on duty or it means that the master is off on a jaunt and they are involved. It is the latter case when we hear the dogs barking in the distance as we approached what was obviously a farm. The dogs appeared first on the track making a loud statement, followed by a farmer in his large tractor and then in beautiful synchronisation about 20 cows walking rhythmically along the lane. They all have a chain necklace around their neck swinging freely and one lucky brown eyed mademoiselle has been specially selected to wear the bell. She wears it with pride as she is the only one bestowed with this special acknowledgment. I wonder why she was the one- was it her special rhythmic tilt of the head to create the creative tones, maybe she was the hyper cow who needed the extra weight around her neck or was she just the cutest of the herd ? They disappear over the hill and as we walk away we can still hear the faint ringing of the cow bell as they head off for those green pastures. No doubt the fromage from this farm will be especially delicious with such musical oriented cows.

Our gite tonight is an old farm house which is part of a working dairy farm. We are excited as we have our own room and have no need to crouch over like the night before. We have caught up with five of our colleagues from the night before and they are being very kind in translating and conveying information.
We are greeted by a lady who I think would be in her 70's she chatters away at us and doesn't get worried that we don't join in with the right responses. She is just like your own grandmother, very warm and engaging.She manages to walk from her home in the dark, down the village street, up our stairs carrying each course of our dinner each time. Tonight it is vegetable soup, pork and potato, cheese and then flans. Since it is a working dairy farm they also make a range of cheeses and after dinner our beautiful hostess takes us over to the farm to meet her son who then takes us to his barn for a tour of his cheese making facilities. Cheese plays such a big part of French society and I think they could quite happily talk about it all day. Apparently there are over 300 different types and each region has its own speciality. We buy a whole cheese in order to nibble it over the next few days. (maybe less as it is so pleasant) I find it amazing that here we are in a little French village and then after dinner we wander over to the farm's cheese area and purchase whatever we want. It's not what we would be doing at home.
Some Data
36,000 steps
200+ cows
100+ sheep
25 bonjours
5 bonsoirs
4 tractors