So, yesterday’s walk. The soil covers a thick layer of chalk - the same chalk found in the south of England that gives the cliffs of Dover their shining white colour. And the ground is still muddy. Many times have I thought with gratitude of all the balance and strength exercises my wonderful kinesiologist Nicole has made me do over the last couple of years - they keep me upright through the goo!
This area is full of water - streams, rivers, ponds… in the first village I passed, there was a sign saying there used to be five water-powered mills. Obviously a good place to settle way back when as well, as this menhir attests.
Houses are still of brick, and nothing looks older than 1920. Here is a farm complex built in the old style, farm buildings clustered around the house, harkening back to a time when prosperous farms would be walled and fortified against brigands and soldiers.
Yesterday’s walk ended at a farm in the tiny village of Trefcon. Another walker, Elena from Switzerland, was staying there. She is only the second ‘pilgrim’ I have met - the first was biking from London to Lausanne. Here we are in the farm kitchen with monsieur, who makes leather saddles as well as welcoming guests. Note the wood stove and the one comfortable chair in the house, obviously for monsieur to watch the stove!
From monsieur I learned that the yellow crop in the fields is colza, grown for oil. Also that a huge plant I had noticed isn’t a power plant, my guess, but an enormous processing plant for vegetables with three stories of underground storage. His family split apart after 1918 as his grandfather ‘went mad’ and couldn’t be trusted around children; his house was built in 1920.
Now to catch up with today’s walk to Saint-Quentin. Here is a close-up of a typical wall. When people rebuilt after the war, they used local clay to make bricks, but there wasn’t enough wood left to cure them properly, so now they tend to discolour and crumble away.
A more recent roadside cross. Not far from there was a sign promoting hedgerows for better land management, wildlife and insects. I’ve seen a couple of very large hares, a few bees. Some hawks and a pair of meadowlarks circling and sweetly singing.
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Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
Arriving in Saint-Quentin, here is a good example of an early 20th century’modern-style’ church.
And here is their gothic basilica. Between the twelfth and the sixteenth century, SEVEN huge cathedrals were built within a SIXTY kilometre circle in this region! The floor in the foreground is a labyrinth, an original from 1495. Walking it (you can’t get lost as there are no dead ends), takes you a distance of 260 metres, supposedly the distance Jesus carried his cross.
A bit more on Saint-Quentin in tomorrow’s blog.
Colza oil is a slighty more acidic form of canola oil which we grown in Bruce Mines. What a beautiful church. And they built 7 huge cathedrals in 60 km. Well I guess the church was indeed collecting their taxes then.
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