Being threatened with calling the gendarmes if I didn’t move on, was a first today.

I had just climbed a long, slow, hill after leavibg Paerhenay, having walked about 16k. I had decided to reward myself with a drink of water at the next flat place. A pile of paving stones loomed, so I pepared to lean my pack against them. These had been placed near the entrance to the driveway of a house. After 5-10 minutes rehydrating and studying my route, I was preparibg to leave when I was hailed by a lady from the house.

She was obviously frifhtened that some strange man with two possibly savage dogs,was sat at the end of her drive, so she asked me to move on before zhe called the gendarme. At that point a large rotweiller appeared at the gate.

I tried to explain that I took a break every hour to give me and my dogs some water, but ahe just wanted me gone and was clearly anxuous. So we moved on.

When the storm broke last night, sime thunderclaps were so koad as to ahake the ground. Happy was shaking and abandoned her normal spot at the bottom of the tent and cuddled up by me.

The rain started up agai in the morning and so we didn’t get packed up until it stopped at 10AM. We successfully skirted round Parthenay, stopping on arrival to do our usual pig-out at a supermarket.

We are now camped about 4k north of St. Pardoux. We stopped at 6PM, as I thought Topsy had done enough, abd we did 29k today. I noticed that her dew claw was rubbibg ger akib and wad a bit red, possibly where I heve been bandaging it tight. So have cleaned it, addrd steroid cream and sone anti-septic. This is in addition to the stetoid creme on her paws and the acid on the pafs. However, she seened to be moving well today, possibly helped as it wad considerably cooler and never really got hot.