For the second time in my life, a bus-stop has caused it to change direction.

When the dogs and I arrived early yesterday evening at the hamlet  of Basse Vacherie, we sat down on a stone bench below a blue bus stop sign.

Topsy had gamely struggled on for 14k on a mixture of roads, cart tracks and forestry paths. Despite a 2 hour lunch break, and wearing an adapted pink shoe, she was struggling and seeking out the softest surface to tread on.

I had just filled up my 3 litre water reservoir at the last farm, and the bus stop represented a point of no return. After this we faced two days walk through a forest without much chance of water or food. At this point I decided that I could not put Topsy through this, with the likelyhood that there would be a continuing mix of black-top bitumen and cart track. This would continue to abraid the pads on her paws and cause her pain. So sat on the bench, it seemed that the only fair thing to do was to abandon walking and to travel by bus or train.

The next problem was to find one.

I enquired at a house behind and found that I was sitting at a School Bus Stop. The boy who used to catch it from there no longer lived there and the bus no longer came. She enlisted the help of a neighbour, whose house Happy started to promptly investigate. Her husband Jacque came out and they very kindly offered to drive me to Aulnay. He dropped me off at the camper-van site. So I put my tent up, washed, and headed onto the Town Square, where I picked up the sound of English from some café tables, which seemed somehow intrusive on this traditional french scene. The lady in the CoOp supermarket told me that the only public transport out of the village was the school bus at 6.50AM the next morning to St. Jean d’Angély. So I settled into the café next door to a beer, a wonderfully presented chévre cheese salad with a coloutful mix of micro sliced slices of cucumber, melon served with a lovely relish of tomato, red onion, pepper and a spice like cumin, but much milder. Lashed out as the emd of the walking tour and had a glass of the local wine. A very smoothe merlot. Interviewed the bartender for rhe Audio Diary. Madame who ran the restaurant claimed too many customers to do it!

Went back to the tent, carefully leaving the dog leads behind. In the morning, after a 45 minute panic-pack (a record!), found them wrapped round a door handle. The bus driver was going to refuse to let us on his bus, even as Guide Dogs (‘chien guide pour les aveugle’ has become a standard piece of my vocabulary). However he relented when he saw poor Topsy limp on her bandaged paw and we were bundled on board with all the school-kids.

I am now sat on the railway station here, waiting for a lunchtime train to Santes, then a wait of one hour before we catch a train to Cognac. We will see when we get there if we hole up for a week or slowly shuffle our way south, following the general route of the GR36.