May 10: All the Good Stuff

I cannot really express how perfect today was. Our accommodation today is a hotel on the town square in Moissac. We arrived a little before 2pm and there was fresh, cold beer. We arrived ahead of the rain, which fell in a bitter shower around 3pm, spattering the courtyard with hard, bouncy drops for twenty minutes, while we sat under the eaves watching the tables get soaked and enjoying our dryness.

The list of good things goes on. Our room has a bath, which is a luxury. When our bag arrived, we walked around the corner to the laundromat and did some wonderful robot laundry for the first time since Cajarc. While our clothes churned away, we found a boulangerie which sold coffee from a machine and delicious, semi-sweet pastries. We sat in the clearing weather on patio furniture in the street, eating crème pâtissier from flaky treats on a metalised plastic tray. Our laundry dried with only one cycle in the dryer. We came home, Carey had a shave. I washed my hair. We both had a good soak in the bath. We put on really clean, dry clothes. Dinner is at 7. The severe weather warning for today is coming good as I speak. There’s thunder crackling outside and the stormfront is approaching.

We made a couple of small tweaks to the recommended path for today, which took us from 27.3km estimated distance to 25.4km, albeit with 500m of elevation gained (and lost, and gained…). That 2km difference meant (as noted above) that we missed the rain, and also that we enjoyed the entire day, despite the climbs and muddy bits, without being forced to trudge exhausted for the final 30 minutes. Up to 25km is a very pleasant day.

It was simply gorgeous walking through a mix of farmland, upland heath and woodland. The sky started out blue and by midday was layered with clouds: sometimes like fish scales; other times like broken tiles, or great billowing pillows – in every shade of lilac, white, grey. There were orchids in shocking pink, or purple-lipped, or mimicking bees with yellow wings. The scent of honeysuckle, rose and briar was almost physical in sheltered sunny spots, as was the hum of flies and other biting bugs in the dank muddy paths in the depths of the woodland. We also had a tricky crossing of a washed-out bridge, which was now flotsam in a decent-sized, thigh-deep stream (which Carey captured on video – see the Week 3 album).

As I sat with my pastry earlier, pack off, boots off, clothes tumbling, bath beckoning, I said to Carey that I felt almost overwhelmed with the quality and generousity of the day and, from there, by the awe generated by this whole experience. I cannot imagine living more profoundly or with more gratitude than this. This is generally true of my privileged life, but the Camino, with its simple but unrelenting demands and rewards somehow manages to dial it up to eleven.