May 12: All things bugging and buggy

Last night we met our first right-wing pilgrims. It is odd that this should come as a surprise: people of all political complexions have legs. They were a 30-something French couple. He shared with us that “they” want lots of migrants in Canada so that when we finally vote on whether or not to join the US, “the immigrants will vote to join because they don’t want to be in Canada anyway. They want to be in the US.” He also opined that Britain was “the country losing its society the fastest” (the immigrants again). And, mail-in ballots are “easy to fake”. He jumped on Carey about only being “legal” for 90 days – just to make sure we understood that. We do.

Our other dinner partners were an elegant older couple of French men, who courteously opened in English, in order to include us. At some point, I asked for something in French and the wife pounced (they were very clear to inform us that they were married). She archly said “Oh, so now you are starting to speak French”, in a very passive aggressive way. She refused to join any conversation that was not in French (although her English was clearly good) and somehow made sure her silence was accusatory and uncomfortable.

They were walking because it is “the real France” and part of “European cultural patrimony”. Naturally.

Anyhow, between their hostility; the “shaking loose” of things from long distance walking; starting this trip with a dissonant family lunch that showed me just how alien/estranged I am in/from England (and, perhaps, with my Canadian citizenship application and the recent – and scary - problems with that), I have been having trauma-flashbacks from my time at Oxford University and, later, at the BBC, which sounds so “woke” and trite, but has been disorienting and sorrowful. The bullying and disfunction in (pretty much all) the other places were safely “other”, because I was an outsider (an immigrant, if you will). The challenges I faced in two, truly great, British institutions were (and still feel) very much “you are the problem” situations. I’ve been reliving a lot of specific incidents at both places, decades old, over the last several days. They are part of a closed/lost life, but still powerfully impact my sense of self. I trust that I am now strong enough to re-encounter these memories, and to part them from my present.

Today, was an awesome day of striking skies and clear air, following the intense rain yesterday.We went only 18km, which gave us time for Carey to do some droning and for me to spend silly amounts of time trying to get good pictures of bugs in flowers.I managed quite a few nice ones (see the Week 4 album), especially as we sat outside our homestay, waiting for them to open.There was a white rambling rose on the wall, full of gorging insects.The time flew by (almost as fast as most of the insects flew off).