French Escape

In just over six weeks I will be walking part of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I am starting to have some doubts about my ability to complete it. I worry about holding people up, letting others down. Although I walk regularly, I am wondering if I will be able to walk 150km in a week.  I did it before, without major difficulty and surprisingly, my feet were in exactly the same state—ie not perfect—at the end of the walk as they had been at the beginning.  Those feet are now two years older and have walked an additional 6000km. The body, that those feet are carrying, has aged. Its joints are more worn, organs more strained.  To spur me on,  when I walk, I am aiming to raise money to help to maintain the building of the church and its attached library, both of which rely totally on donations for their upkeep. I don't want to disappoint anyone who has made a donation in my name but more importantly, I don't want to let myself down. https://www.justgiving.com/page/jacqueline

  It’s raining again. That's a phrase I didn't expect to use, living here in the South of France. I returned to Menton last weekend, imagining constant sunshine. I had spent a brief but very pleasant sojourn in England—catching up with friends and family, getting the final things out of storage ready to be transported to France and of course checking out what's new in John Lewis.   At 4am last Saturday, I was woken by window-rattling thunder and simultaneously, spectacular lightning. It rained persistently until Monday morning, I didn’t step out of the door for the whole of Sunday. Fortunately the apartment stayed snug and dry but it rained so heavily that the library was flooded and water got into the church. In the library, no books were damaged but several of the photographs, put up ready for the forthcoming exhibition, fell from the sodden walls—it was as well  that they weren't irreplaceable watercolours .  Further afield there were mini mudslides and  swollen rive