Day 12 – Tergnier to Laon

“I love the Mexican people. I’ve had a great relationship with Mexico and the Mexican people.”  Donald Trump

Thursday 12/4/2018

Distance 33.7km Total Distance from Canterbury 320.9km

I am becoming more confident about the Alison Raju book (Cicerone) and it is what I mostly follow. With a bit of help from Google. As I said yesterday my Italian book believes I perhaps stayed in Suzy last night. But I didn’t. So there is a bit of mix and match to do with the guidebooks. But a simple enough route to follow. Against that it is a long way and I am feeling the effort a bit. I headed out in the same direction of the canal, on minor roads until I came to the small village of Deuillet. From here the information of the guidebook began to make sense: from here the scenery starts to change a little and become hillier and wooded. The directions are sometimes quite specific: turn L onto small tarmac lane by village exit board (house no 17) veering L to farm, after which the lane becomes a grassy track/earth lane, gently uphill all the time and mainly shady. It sounds almost idyllic doesn’t it? Well it sticks in my mind, because I can tell you that in the large garden of the aforementioned no 17 was a man with a shotgun aiming at something in the garden, though the high hedge meant I could not see what. Or indeed who, perhaps, He saw me pass but didn’t acknowledge me. He was whistling somewhat nonchalantly. I hoped I was not going to turn out to be a material witness but, just in case, I made a note of the time on my watch.

So off I went up the gentle uphill another 300m or so, and there a few yards away was another man, whistling nonchalantly. He had a chainsaw in his hands. He didn’t acknowledge me. I wondered if perhaps I had wandered onto the set of a low budget horror movie. Indeed I suppose  I could have made my own  low budget horror movie – the iphone is well up to it. And as it happens, tomorrow is Friday 13th. I had a quick note of the time of the second whistling man, just in case the investigating judge  (or juge d’insruction: you will know this if you watch the French detective series, Spiral, which I recommend) needed my testimony. This would of course depend on my being a witness rather than a victim. Anyway, what could I do but continue, on medium to high alert? As i am writing this you know of course that nothing unexpected happened. Or at least nothing bad unexpected.

I left these rather worrying guys behind and proceeded along a very undulating asphalt path through the Forest of St Gobain. The birds were singing loudly and the flowers in the undergrowth were blooming.

There were several signs for a Centre de Rééducation (I wonder how many French words have two consecutive e-acute accents?) et Réadapatation Fonctionelle de St Gobain.

I  guess it might be something like Stoke Mandeville Hospital in UK which is a national referral centre for catastrophic spinal injuries. Anyway, my path did not lead me too it, but it is certainly in a fairly remote spot. My path brought me to the little village of St Nicholas-au-Bois. And here I met and befriended the Mexican. Like Donald Trump. To call it a little village is really an exaggeration. It is more of a medium hamlet. At the side of the road is a very run down looking pink building. You would imagine it had been unoccupied for ten or more years.

The sign on it read ‘Le Mexico – since 1968’ (strangely in English). I walked around it and saw no sign of life, except that there was a blackboard in the garden with a menu. And the menu said lunch from 12-3. And some tables outside but with chairs upside down on them. I was curious and carried on to the door. I touched the handle and … it opened. I couldn’t believe it. A cheerful voice said Bonjour, and I was into a restaurant. A French Restaurant. With French people in it. A friend of mine once said as we sat and ate in a trattoria “It is always a good sign when you see Italian people in an Italian restaurant.” I said I agreed with him, but probably more of a positive indication in Chorley in Lancashire (to pluck a town from the air) than in Trastevere, in Rome, where we were at the time. A large menu was brought to me. A full lunch service. I wondered for a moment if I had finally walked into another part of my low budget movie. But no: it was for real. I have rarely been so surprised. You will find them on Facebook and can relive the joys of their karaoké nights.  In fact only last Saturday I had missed Karaoké Line Dancing, Be still my beating heart. I still cannot really believe it. It would be like finding a restaurant and club in a remote corner of a really remote  place. Like Rockall. Much sustained, I took off again. But while I was eating the rain had come. And still a long way to go. And the road still undulating, which sounds much nicer than hills but there were a lot of hills, and plenty of rain.

Ultreia as they say on the Camino. I am not sure if anyone knows what Ultreia means, but perhaps ‘onward and upward’. Definitely onward and definitely upward and getting wetter as I went along. The book suggested I would see Laon in the distance. This has not been a helpful indication in the past few days, and it was not today. In the distance all I could see were low clouds. As I went further in the distance on top of a high mountain, I began to see tall trees. As I got a bit nearer to these very far off tall trees on top of a high mountain in the clouds I began to think they could possibly be church spires or tall blocks of flats. Could Laon he up on top of a hill/ Yes indeed. It looked very far away and very high up indeed. My guidebook started telling me that I would come into the outskirts of the new town and then find my way up to the old town. And at one point turn right at Carrefour Winchester. Laon is twinned with Winchester in Hampshire, from where as it happens, I took the train to Canterbury, nearly two weeks ago. Carrefour as in crossroads, not as in supermarket, although they are everywhere here. Though not in St Nicholas-au-Bois. You cannot buy a box of matches in St Nicholas-au-Bois. But the line dance karaoké surely makes up for it.

I was quite tired, I had walked over 20 miles and I didn’t fancy huge climbing so I cautiously put my hotel into Google Maps. It has an unusual name, the ex-Ibis. And by a marvellous stroke of luck I could skirt around the high old town and get to it on a lower road. Google did not wish to spare me all the fun and took me around the perimeter of a large campsite on a muddy track, and then down to a mega Carrefour. Carrefour now as in hypermarket, not crossroads. Google then brought me right to the door of the Ibis hotel. Google sadly confused. I didn’t want the Ibis hotel, I wanted the ex-Ibis Hotel. Happily this turned out to be only 200m away from the reali Ibis, like a child who has been sent away from home, but in fact camps at the bottom of the garden.

I was tired and wet and happy to find my accommodation and shower. And I had done something I don’t think I had ever done before – gone past a cathedral without at least looking in. It is supposed to be splendid with many strange and interesting things to see, though I think the whale’s jawbone brought from England in 1113 is no longer there. It has a stone ox on top of one of its towers. But sorry, I cannot confirm that. I am never going to know. The lower town where I was dates only to the nineteenth century  and came with the railway.