Day 18 Chalons-en-Champagne to Coole

 It’s cool to be in Coole

Wednesday 18/4/2018

Distance 27.9km  Total Distance from Canterbury 463km

The hottest day yet and breaking all records for April, 29C for me during the afternoon. The temperature passed 30C in some places. So it was cool to reach Coole. But it is not cool to call Coole ‘cool’.  I’ll teach you how to pronounce it later. Start thinking about Carbon. It will help.

The étape or stage proposed in my book for today was 41km. The reason for such a long stage is the complete lack of facilities along the way. As I think I’ve mentioned, I can do over 40km in a day if I have to for some reason. 42.195km is a marathon and I have completed five – two in Dublin and one each in Nairobi, Ljubljana and Budapest. But not carrying 9kg on my back and not  in temperature of 29. Also generally for a marathon I didn’t do a similar distance the day before or the day after. And after a marathon I don’t need to find accommodation, wash my clothes or do the shopping.  There is guy from Liverpool (my birthplace) who is setting out on May 1st from Canterbury to run to Sicily.  I don’t know him except through various VF forums. He’ll be doing a marathon everyday. That is serious. I wish him the best of luck. Check his fundraising page. If all goes well for him we might arrive in Rome around same time. I’ll be stopping – he won’t!

So today I wasn’t excited at the prospect of pushing on to  Le Meix-Tercelin, although I found the unusual name attractive! Mme Viviane and François both said I should stay in Coole with Mme Songy. It cuts the distance more or less in half. I begin to feel a bit like an allied airman who has been shot down during the war and is being handed on through a series of safe houses by the Résistance or the Maquis. ‘Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once‘, for people of a certain age. Mme Songy is much mentioned in books and forums, known both for her helpfulness and generosity and also perfect English. So I phoned her and she said of course I must come and be her guest and eat with her but she had to go to Nancy tomorrow with her husband to attend the hospital outpatients and she would not be back until 5pm. If I got there before that I should relax on the terrace. Given the lack of refreshment stops and the likely hot weather I accepted Brigitte’s suggestion to delay my departure. She suggested I leave my bag at the house and go for a mooch around the town. I forget now what the French for ‘mooch’ is. Perhaps flâner which is what a flâneur does. The flâneur seems to be coming back into fashion. Anyway that is when I discovered what a smart place it is as I mentioned yesterday.

I called into Nôtre Dame en Vaux again and found Mass was just starting at 0830. Note that Wikipedia, like my Italian guidebook confuses this church with the Cathedral. They are completely separate. It is a busy working parish and François and Brigitte are parishioners. Mass was at a small altar behind the high altar and the priest came out with three servers. Mass was said in Latin but using the ‘new’ rite or Novus Ordo, which is to say the same as Mass in English or French, but in Latin and different therefore than the Latin Mass at Wisques.  (Please don’t worry about these different forms but you should be aware that at least metaphorical blood had been shed in recent times over them.). The readings were in French. The three servers chanted (very beautifully) in Gregorian chant the various prayers of the Mass. One of them, a teenager and the chief cantor took me insert his wing and came to my side half a dozen times to turn the pages over in my prayer book. (Because Mass in Latin is quite uncommon nowadays and some people would be lost.) I went to get them all after Mass and he smiled sheepishly when he learned I was an old priest. I rarely look like a priest.

The church has great windows telling the various stories of the life of Santiago, the ‘St James’ of Compostela. This window is the currently non-PC Santiago Matamoros – St James Slayer of the Moors. There are pictures and statues all along the Camino. The Christian re-conquest of Spain was big stuff in its day. There is a statue up on the wall in the Cathedral in Santiago where the headless Moors lying on the ground are coyly covered with fresh flowers!

To the shops then – nearly all the shops were ‘artisanal’ which for me is another way of saying ‘needlessly overpriced’ which is what ‘organic’ means in UK. (I accept that other people have other views on this but I am NOT going to get involved in further discussion  here!!!) There was a street market also full of interesting things. Anyway I managed to find a Carrefour and bought some pilgrim staples  – fruit, cheese, bread and cereal bars. And I bought something I can strongly advise you NOT to buy in France – a sliced bread sandwich in a plastic triangle like you get everywhere in UK. Meh! It was horrible!

François being an experienced walker and pilgrim had shown me a better way out of the town than my guidebook. The Coole is a river. Rivers are clearly very important in France giving their names to many Départements. And at virtually every bridge, no matter how small, there is a sign telling you the name of the river. And the names of many places are X-sur-Y, (X upon the river Y),  or X-lès-Y, (X near to the river Y). The first village you come to  is Coolus. It sounds like it should be the Latin for Coole. But this seems not to be the case.

[If you have no conception of what The Archers is you may wish to omit this paragraph from your reading. It is the world’s longest running radio soap opera, which began in 1951.] There is a character on The Archers on BBC Radio, previously known as ‘an everyday story of country folk’ called Jim.  I’ve mentioned I live (not by choice) on a farm. Quite honestly an everyday story of country folk was as near as I ever wanted to get to animals and machines and smells. I have listened to The Archers more or less since I had measles, quarantined at home but with an old Pye valve radio for company. Jim is the father of Alastair the still (a bit tenuously at present) second husband of Shula (who comes from Liverpool in real life.) He is opinionated and grumpy (two excellent attributes) and is also a retired classicist. He drops Latin and Greek into his conversation. So on the discussion forum, where all characters have another nickname, (so Shula is ‘Saint Shula’ for instance) Jim is called ‘Jimmus’. Which, like ‘Coolus’, is not actually the Latin for anything. Anyway.

I returned to the house and bade farewell to Mme Cuvelette who was busy making a rather splendid looking apple tart. She had also made me a packed lunch. Very reluctantly she accepeted an offering for parish funds.

And off I went. The key is to get to the Roman Road. Then just walk for 17km through wind farms, and fields of wheat, with no turn. The book says this is often ‘a windy place’. Ogden Nash (allegedly) said that ‘wind is caused by trees waving their branches’ which may be true. Maybe now wind is caused by wind turbines.

François said that the key thing was to turn right at a tree. Not the only tree I would see although there were not many. And h drew a little diagram. And when I got there I could see exactly what he meant.

And so eventually I  got to Coole, by which time I was very hot indeed. Mme Songy had not arrived so I rested in the shade. Content.

Coole. Carbon. Carbon exists in many forms. My walking poles are carbon fibre as strong as steel but light as a feather. Without carbon there would be no organic molecules. And er, creating life could have been more difficult – though of course nothing is impossible to God! Graphite was already used in 3000BC as a decorative substance. Coal is largely carbon. As are diamonds. And there is your key. To pronounce Coole in the authentic French way, almost say ‘coal’. But stop yourself. Don’t have an image of coal in your mind. Switch to an image of diamonds and say ‘coal’ in a delicate way, like a duchess wearing diamonds, about to eat a cucumber sandwich. And alight on the word like a humming bird landing on a very frail twig. Then you will be cool.

And I’m sorry but if you say ‘cooool’ for Coole, even the nicest people will look at you blankly, as if you come from Jupiter.