Lovely morning but some fairly long boring stretches today. Finished the pizza for bfast and so made it to lidl and just bought orange juice and a bunch of pain au chocolat.
A cyclist pointed out that a walking pole was in the road and so i retrieved it. Maybe it was cursed, but i thought i looked rather dapper in my black hat and black pole. But it was from then things started to go wrong.
Landscape flat, agricultural but almost nowhere to wild camp. No public footpaths either to take you away from the roads.
Sitting resting from the heat a bloke came out and gave me a half litre bottle of cold water. Very kind.
And then the shin splints started, possibly because of the tarmac pounding. I had them in the past when running but they soon went away. This time is didnt, and it really slowed me down. Was very pleased indeed to get to campsite.
Very friendly. Run by blonde Stef. Seemed more like a little village/trailer park. Set up, had shower and ready in time for onsite pizzeria to open at 6.
V. Busy. Had a pichet or two of wine. Wine was a bit ropey but i just imagined it was retsina and everything was ok.
Cant remember why i got speaking to the people there, probably Stef asking about the journey. Then everyone joined in. No one spoke english except for an eight year old boy thrust forward to tell me his name. One guy said i spoke good french but only relative to everyone else’s english.
One former french army conscript mentioned gloing sockless and putting cardboard in shoes helped with blisters (cloque). I had one on side of foot.
Pizza arrived. Pizza canabale. I made some weak gag about being disappointed at the lack of human flesh. Still got a laugh.
Someone asked me my age and thats how my birthday got out. Stef’s fella gave me a free glass of wine for that.
Instructions for shin splints is painkillers, frozen peas on shin, stop doing what caused it in the first place. Painkillers it’ll be then.
Distance today (km) 25, total 855