Generally I don't do emotional partings. However, in anticipation, I dragged out my packing and postponed my departure by several hours by chatting with my campsite neighbours. Some conversations were in English, like with the stone mason from the Lake District, who can't look at the landscape without eyeing up each stone and assessing its qualities with a practical aim in mind. Which, in this rocky area, he admits is exhausting.
I also spoke excellent English with the half Turkish/ half German psychotherapist who specialises in trauma release. Some of her clients, sadly, but not surprisingly, come to process their well buried, and toxic, experiences from WW2. Coincidentally her husband is a professional juggler and they are off, after a quick cycle up Ventoux, to the International Juggling Convention in Toulouse. The coincidence being, this is where my daughter and her boyfriend were cycling to when our paths crossed last week in a Butlins style campsite south of Nantes.
I also passed some time in French with the keen Belgian cyclists who speak very slowly for me and the older Frenchman who once owned a vintage motorbike and made animated references to Brigit Bardot.
Nevertheless it was very emotional because this landscape looks, feels, sounds, and smells like "home".
Only a few km from the campsite I called in at the Abbaye de Madeleine to buy bread made by the monks and sit in their church to shed a few tears for the sheer tender beauty of life. Then filled my water bottle and set off.
In theory my route was a tangle of tiny winding roads, which if I kept re-aligning north west would eventually get me to Le Puy en Valey. The Abbaye de Madeleine is pressed up between the Dentilles, which I "translated" to mean teeth because the valley did look a bit like the inside of a giant's mouth.
I stopped to unfold my map and get my bearings. Up the road by the fountain was a raucous clamor. A crowd of what looked like Boy Scouts in fancy dress were chasing about, laughing and splashing water over each other.
It transpired that they were monks from the monastery I had just visited. Four times a year they walk from 8am to 8pm up the Dentilles singing in churches along the way. The rocks looked a challenge, one which might have been compounded by the fact that the monks wake at 3 am to say their morning prayers. Or maybe this made it easier.
I chatted with Brother Francois de Salles
about "Le Triumph!" : how many cylinders did Louise have? how many cc? did she handle well on corners with so much baggage?
And when I asked how long he had been a brother he answered, after considerable hesitation, 30 years.
" But you look so young ", I replied.
" In the monastery, there is no time."
He laughed and Brother Edmund and Brother John the Beloved joined him.
One of the brothers up the road shouted out "allons-y" and led the way with a small group.
The rest of the brothers reluctantly moved away from the fountain taking advantage of their final opportunity to squirt water before refilling their bottles for the last time. As they passed me, one brother closed his eyes and shook his head, " ils sont juste de grands enfants!"
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