On Monday morning, as soon as the workshop opened, I called the company, Radical Design. They confirmed that I could have what I had begun calling “the chariot” shipped very quickly to France for 15 euro. As I did not want to wait longer in Guines, I had resolved to make one more walk with the pack and had made a reservation in a hotel for the next stage in the small town with a great name of Tournehem-sur-la-Hem. I gave the company that address and at 11:00, set out on my walk to Tournehem, not via the official route, which would have involved a fair amount of forests and hills, but with Google maps via the small country roads that were mostly flat.
Although they had traffic, almost all of them had a decent shoulder, and the vast majority of drivers saw me well ahead of time and slowed, while I stopped and stepped off the tarmac until they passed.
I made a pit stop at a roadside mini-mall, with two groceries and other shops. I have to note that at the first grocery, I had the interesting experience of being unable to use the facilities, because I thought I might pass out from the effluvia of the previous occupant. And I have been in some dicey toilets around the world, so this was a new one. Not normally the sort of detail I would share… Fortunately there was a second shop.
Around 2:30 in the afternoon, when it was rather warm and sunny, and I was starting to be on the downward slope of my energy levels, I realized that I had missed a turn across a field, and thus added more than a mile to my itinerary.
I wanted to cry. A sense of powerlessness overwhelmed me – there was no one to blame but myself, and there was nothing to be done but accept it. But that wasn’t easy. I found my way back to the right path – rue de Jerusalem! A sign! – and then onto a track that rewarded me with pleasant vistas and the knowledge that this was also Sigeric’s path. It made the pain of the extra time somewhat easier to bear.
When I thought I couldn’t go on any longer, a statue of Mary our Lady of Lourdes appeared, with a plinth where I could sit to have a break and divest myself of the pack for a moment. I had a pear and rested until I started to feel chilly. I continued on, feeling stiff, past men doing work in mysterious holes with giant backhoes, an automated distributeur of eggs and other farm goods, and houses with a fondness for grandiose statuary. Only one bit of road was without a shoulder, but I went very slowly and plastered myself against the railing if a car was nearing.
At one point, near the end, I saw a taxi go by in the opposite direction, and after that I found myself staring keenly at every car that drove by, wishing that I might see another, for I would gladly take it. There were no more, however, and finally I rounded a bend and spied Tournehem in the distance, hoping that the hotel would not be up the farther hill (which of course it was).
When I crossed the small river Hem, I found an old house with the sign on the door attesting that this had been the fief of Antoine de Bourgogne, the Great Bastard! And his heart was buried there, at the church of St-Medard, in town (“I left my heart in Tournehem” doesn’t quite have the same ring, though…”). I don’t know what happened to the rest of him.
The small town square, a little further on, was charming, as was the path passing through the city wall onward to my hotel, which was another 500 m, and I willed myself there. When I finally arrived, 23 km and 7.5 hours since I had started out, I could barely take the small steps up to the reception. I was so grateful that my room was on the ground floor. I told the receptionist that I was going to be receiving a package.
Dinner was pasta with salmon. I had a work conference call afterwards, and then I slept.
I was tracking the package, which was being handled by DHL in the Netherlands and then by Chronopost in France. When I learned that it would arrive on Wednesday, I let the hotel know I would be staying another night at least, and perhaps more (depending on what time it arrived). This was a good thing, because it really took me most of Tuesday to recover, further confirming the wisdom of the decision to buy the chariot (although I did not know how it would be, actually, until I tried it, I hoped that it would make a big difference in my capacity to walk and perhaps more crucially, enjoy the walk!).
Tuesday night I tried the local specialties (yes, some meat), which ended up being a huge dinner, so on Wednesday morning I did not go to breakfast, instead making some tea in my room and following the tracking. At 8:00 or so, it said it was “out for delivery” so I thought I might actually be able to leave that day, perhaps only walking part way to the next stage of Wisques.
I checked periodically and then at 11:00 the tracking refreshed to advise me that the package had been refused by the recipient!!
I tore out of the room barefoot and accosted the man at reception (who I thought was the courier but was in fact picking up the laundry…). I would say that the noises I was making might have been categorized as moaning, and much invocation of oh mon Dieu. The reception was taken aback; they looked in their book and told me nothing was noted (it was a different receptionist, although this was a very small operation). They said that since they ran the amusement area across the street, they often received unsolicited packages and they claimed my name was not on it.
After some time, we reached Chronopost by phone – and I will advise my US readers that delivery services have the same wait times and problems that they do at home – and they said it could be picked up the next morning at the closest pick up point, in Eperleques, another town away. The receptionist said she would drive me there in the morning. And so I stayed another day and night. This was now Wednesday.
On Thursday morning, early, I woke and refreshed the tracking. The list of activities, although noting that the package was to be dropped in Eperleques, then noted that it had been “returned to sender.” I stared. I refreshed. I called. I looked at the DHL website also, which noted that the package had been delivered (!) on its express website, but returned to sender on its surface site. I called Radical Design. They were in disbelief. I asked them to confirm on their end. When I spoke again with them a half hour later, they had been able to confirm that indeed it was being returned to them.
Well.
There was no way I was going to a) walk another day with the pack and b) wait again at some hotel without knowing if the same thing was going to happen all over again.
So, I was going to Amsterdam and on to Groningen and the small town where the workshop was located.
