It was a sombre morning as I set out from Hamars, the little village on the Chemin de Caen where I had ended my walk eighteen months ago, and soon the somber weather begat a very somber mood. I began on the right path, indicated by a blue balise, a symbol of the Mount Saint Michel, and followed a stony country lane down into a valley and up again to meet a road where there was no indication of the chemin to follow. Or perhaps there was: a blue smudge on a post which might once have been a marker, or it might have been a blue cross indicating the direction not to go. After a few yards along the road I ventured onto a likely looking track across a field. Rain threatened.
As we were driving to Hamars from Ouistreham this morning, we talked about the role of chance in our lives, how we were together in the car at that moment because of a chance meeting in Ouistreham 40 years ago. And we were here because all of our ancestors, generation after generation, had been the lucky ones among their siblings to survive pestilence and plague, war and famine.
And just by chance, coming towards me on the path, was a group of walkers — from Ouistreham, as it happened. “You’re going back to Hamars,” they said. So I turned back to the road and after a fruitless search for a sign, I asked Apple Maps for the quickest route to walk to Saint-Jean-le Blanc.
And so I walked along country roads through fields of corn somewhat the worse for wear after the extreme heat over the summer. The cows would receive a burnt offering indeed from the maize of these corn fields.
Every so often a church spire signalled that I was about to pass through a village. Would there be a bar or a boulangerie? No, only a church and a mairie that opened for a few hours each week. At the little village of Le Plessis-Grimoult I sat on a bench and ate my lunch. A polite little boy walked by and said bonjour. His grandmother followed. That was the extent of the village population.
After another hour’s walking, I reached Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, a full two hours earlier than I expected, because I had taken a more direct route along the roads.
A word about my gîte, Le Temps de Cerises: a little appartement, very comfortable, kitchen and living room downstairs, two bedrooms upstairs. My only quibble: the wifi had the longest password I have ever seen. It took me several goes.
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