Day 16 – Reims to Trépail

Simplement Audacieux  – Simply Audacious

Monday 16/4/2018

Distance 27.4km Total Distance from Canterbury XXkm

A beautiful day in which I was beset by kindness, three times and which was the beginning of the record breaking heatwave which has been particularly felt here in the North.

I stayed last night in CIS just over the river from the Cathedral. It stands for Centre International de Sejour. It seems to be a chain of youth hostel type accommodation. They seem to do language courses too and are very concerned with accessibility. It was cheap and comfortable if rather soulless, but the few staff were very friendly and helpful. And it had the biggest and best all-you-can-eat  breakfast I’ve yet encountered. A Breakfast of Champions. But no mushrooms. That would have made it a Breakfast of Champignons, as a friend pointed out on Facebook recently. (Thanks Phil.)

It’s coming on 46 years since I began at medical school. It was then the largest pre-clinical school in UK. I subsequently went on to ‘the first school to be granted an official charter for medical teaching in 1785.’ Rather like the ‘highest pub in Ireland’ there are half a dozen ’oldest medical schools’ in UK! I remember the opening words of the opening lecture by the Regius Professor of Anatomy. He looked as old as Methuselah but I daresay was younger than I am now. ‘If you are interested in diseases, welcome. Please stay. If you are interested in caring for sick people leave now and take up nursing.’ It is and was of course possible to be interested in both.

The second memorable thing to happen at medical school is the introduction to the DR, the dissecting room. People of great generosity leave their bodies for medical research and medical students dissect the bodies, respectfully, in order to learn about human anatomy. Burial occurs within two years I think. We were 250 in the class and four to a body so that means we entered a room with over 60 corpses, pale and stiff, arranged on white ceramic tables. A surreal site. Not distressing but certainly strange and unprecedented in most people’s prior life. What was slightly overwhelming was the smell of formaldehyde – a toxic and carcinogenic liquid  used to preserve the corpses. The smell is pervasive. It’s not really unpleasant, it is not the smell of decay, but it verges on overpowering. But after a while it seems to fade. It doesn’t, but this illustrates something you learn early on in physiology. It is called ‘habituation’. The body ‘tunes out’ a repeated stimulus which is not somehow relevant. I was a paediatrician and could enter a ward of 20 babies and not particularly notice that they were all crying. That’s habituation. I’ve lost that knack now. So the smell of formaldehyde became almost undetectable to us although I think others could still smell it off us and our clothes. And disposable gloves were not around in those days so your fingertips became sort of preserved. Formaldehyde is not used any more. The Thiel method, derived from the curing process of meat is now used.

Anyway. The path today was straightforward apart from getting radically lost in a forest for half an hour, a particular defect of my guidebook, resolved by Google. (If you need specifics of my route please contact me directly. Or you can see my daily GPS on Strava and Wikiloc.)

Just as I left the city I saw a barber and had a haircut. I think it should do me until Rome. On reflection (!) I think it may do me until Christmas.

The walk began along a large  working canal. Very level, very peaceful and no turns.

At Sillery where you leave the canal there is once again an enormous French war cemetery.

And then immediately you are in the very heart of champagne country with vineyards as far as the eye can see. And lots of famous names. Verzelay next is a prosperous village on a hill with lots of direct vendors and some very famous names, Mumm, Taittinger, Veuve Cliquot.  It also has a windmill and a famous lighthouse. But no coffee and no food. I expect if you are buying crates of champagne they give you nibbles.

So. Three acts of kindness.. In Verzy, a much smaller village I spotted a bar and fancied coffee. And food.  I tried the door but it was locked. A voice shouted up the street and a woman told me she would drop off the children and be back in two minutes. Which she was. And she opened up. And she made coffee. I asked for food and she said no they didn’t do any. I put on my silent forlorn face. She disappeared and returned with a banana and a tray of those decorative chocolate biscuits in different shapes, rather thin, perhaps Belgian, that you see at Christmas. We chatted about the village. She asked me about the walk and she told me champagne is hard work. It is the time for tying the single stems of each vine along a wire. All done by hand. It is very hard on the back. Her son had done over 20 tares(?) yesterday. I presume a tare is something that goes to make up a hectare. He was in pain today. I got up to leave. I paid for my coffee. For the banana and the biscuits there was, in the words of Tammy Wynette, ‘No charge.’

Onward and as I passed a strange llittle window low down near the road it opened and an elderly head popped out. ‘Are you going to Rome?’ He asked. I said yes and he pointed out a pilgrim figure and a cockle shell next to the window to establish his credentials. ‘You want coffee?’ he said. I have never refused.

He brought me into a small old fashioned simple kitchen like a ship’s galley. He made coffee and produced little chocolates and we got talking. In French. He had walked to Rome and Compostela. Now at 84 he no longer walks (but he still skis). I had noticed the motto ‘Simply Audacious’ on the wall as I came in. I asked him about it. ‘It is our motto’ he said. André Sacy is a direct descendant of Louis de Sacy who founded the family business in the early 1600s. It is now run by André’s son and grandson. They have cornered a niche market in USA to which most of their production goes. And it includes kosher champagne particularly for the US market. Eventually after three coffees I bade him a fond farewell. We took a look at the discrete and very modern corporate HQ next door. The President’s office has a stunning view.

The remaining 5 or 7 km to Trépail was where I got lost in the forest. In the local dialect the name means the place in the swamp. In the forest I got into mud over my ankles. I think the ‘pail’ bit means swamp. It’s why one type of antimalarial is called paludrine. Malaria was thought to be due to bad air, mal air, rising of of swamps. Paludism is an old word for malaria.

But eventually I reached Trépail and found the house of Mme Jacqueminet whom I had phoned yesterday.  I entered through a barn door into a disordered courtyard. And was immediately almost knocked over by a smell. Mal air. Not formaldehyde. Not anything I could immediately identify. Not positively a bad smell. But an almost tangible smell. I live on a farm – not from choice! It was not the smell of slurry not the smell of silage, though it had overtones of each. It could have been the smell of meat curing, but no sign of this. It was not, mercifully, the smell of pigs. It could have been a plant. Paperwhite narcissi can smell very bad but of them no sign. It was not the smell of cheese. I was about to go away when an elderly lady appeared from an inner door to welcome me. Too late. She urged me in. Well over 80. Not a one to flinch at the sight of muddy boots. She told me the house was in a mélange (or possibly a ménage) as she had fallen last night and hurt her knee. I felt a bit at home with the air of disarray. The smell was if anything stronger in the house. I took shallow breaths. There was no backing  out. She produced coffee and of course, in accordance with first year physiology I habituated and the smell vanished. (Much) later she fed me and two hearty farm workers. They shared their rum from Réunion Isle. We drank  it with tropical fruit juice.  The food was wonderful, the cheese was heavenly. Having been promised at 7pm it emerged about 9:30.pm. So what? Kindness and bonhomie displaced the mysterious miasma. Mme Viviane told me she kept an eye on the church and she had the key. She told me she loved having pilgrims as her mother had before. She phoned someone who would look after me tomorrow. Another old lady down the line…

I mentioned this to a friend who said, ‘That’s great news! I hope the old ladies have young daughters for future pilgrims! There’s a chain of phone calls being made in France about you tonight!!’

I know what she meant. You may need to read it twice! (Thanks Fran.)

Mme Jacqueminet was another admirer of Tammy Wynette. But I gave her something for the church.