Friday April 10. La Chaussée-sur-Marne. 22.4 km.

A grey cool day, much better for walking than yesterday which was hot and sunny. Walked solo too, which I do prefer - no pressure to keep up the pace or say something intelligent!

Leaving Chalons-sur-Marne, I walked through some of the three big ‘Jard’ or parks that this small city is so proud of. Here is part of a skateboard area - the fanciest and scariest I have ever seen!

Then back to canals, fields, small woods. Much less pavement than yesterday. I saw fish in the canals, two grouse and then a pheasant flashing red with his long long tail. And most rewarding, I finally heard a cuckoo. Cuckoos are unfortunately a severely threatened species due to habitat loss, decline in insect species, and I gather migration difficulties.

Nothing much else to report. Fellow pilgrim Hubert and I met for dinner at the hotel. This I have learned from my earlier walks is the « way of the pilgrim » ; you meet, encourage each other, then part - the friendship is sustaining, fun, and fleeting. Unfortunately the food proved too rich for my digestive system, so the night was a bit rocky. Here is what my bowl of soup looked like.

That is popcorn on top of the soup. Last time I had popcorn on a bowl of soup was in Ecuador. A somewhat puzzling trend!

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Sat Oct 4. London.

19 days walking on pilgrimage paths for a total of 395 km or 245 miles on foot (not that arduous - an average of 20.7 km per day, and lots of ‘rest days’ staying put in one place). All of that undone in 1.5 hours on a Eurostar train. I’m not entirely sure what conclusion I’m drawing from that comparison, but I’m back where I started, in London. On my way to my lodgings (I’m staying in a Buddhist retreat centre) I decided to visit the first visitable place to cross my path, which turned out to be the Foundling Museum. Horrified by the sight of infants being abandoned on 18th c London streets, a prosperous seaman, Thomas Coram, spent 17 years raising awareness and funds, as well as obtaining royal permission to build London’s first children’s charity. Opened in 1739, the Foundling Hospital continued its work until the 1950s, and actually is still active as a non-institutional resource, under a different name. Here is a photo of it in 1935. So many similarities to ...

Fri Oct 3. Lille.

I had a lovely day in Lille. In fact, all my days on this trip have been lovely! In the morning I went to the very large Palais des Beaux-Arts. This museum holds the largest collection of works of art of any French institution outside Paris. The collection started at the time of the French Revolution as the works of art of the nobility and of the church were confiscated, and continued on apace due to various enthusiastic municipal governments. By 1892 the collection was so large and important that the Palais, its current house, was constructed in the centre of town. The first fun aspect was the recent work of the Swiss artist Felice Varini who used the museum’s interior as his canvas. The oldest works of art are in the ‘basement’, beautifully displayed. Look at the marvellous three dimensionality of this (flat) marble plaque sculpted by Donatello (c 1435) showing Salomé dancing for the head of John the Baptist. And modern technology brings statues alive by giving them back t...

September 5

I landed at Heathrow this morning at 6 am, a very inconvenient time to get a room and rest! But my student residence accommodation includes a common room with handy couches for a short snooze. The neighbourhood abuts on Regent’s Park, complete with gorgeous flowerbeds. The Queen Mary’s rose garden in Regent’s Park. My neighbourhood wandering took me to the Wallace House which used to be one of the homes of the marquesses of Hertford. The Hertfords were fabulously rich, mainly from extensive land holdings, and in the 18th and 19th centuries avid art collectors. They obviously had Trumpian home decorating tastes. Here are two of their many clocks, all of which need frequent ‘fine tuning’, it appears. I particularly liked two 18th c British paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds in their collection: Mrs Carnac and the hauntingly strange Strawberry Girl.

Celia Walks

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