day 14 - draft
Tuesday, 19 April 2016
Lauzerte to Moissac
24 km today - 415 km to date

Breakfast at 7h and off about 7h30, but not very far to start with.  Just as I had photo graphed quite a few of the buildings late yesterday afternoon so I wanted to take as many as possible in the early morning light.

Eventually I leave Lauzerte shortly after 8h, again by road.  Up gentle hills and down the other side, and repeat several times.  And today just about all is on the left hand side facing the oncoming traffic.  For many days now I usually give a friendly wave of the hand, rather like saying “bon jour” if I was passing face to face.  To start with I would have about one in ten wave back.  By today I think I have perfected how soon before they will pass me to begin my wave as I have a very high “wave back” rate today.

Durfort-Capalette is about halfway and a good time for morning tea: bananas and a pinwheel pastry with sugar.  And yet another First World War memorial with some WWII  mentions and 19 March 1962 “fin guerre en Algerie”.

I make it to Moissac just after noon and encounter a “Lidl” super-marche”.  Must stop to examine this phenomenon and scoff a litre of a “multi-vitamin” fruit drink and another pinwheel pastry with.  This store, like most newer supermarkets is on the edge of the town so car parks can be provided.  No great surprise that some near the entrance are reserved for “familles avec enfants” but relatively staggered to see four reserved using the international blue signage for wheelchair users. Staggered because I have yet to see a wheelchair at all in more than 400 km or at either Charles de Gaulle airport or the large city of Lyon.  Staggered also because just about all the housing in the villages, towns and cities appear to have bedrooms above ground level.

I find the Tourisme Office and they direct to a new gite in the general direction of just a few hundred metres away.  After climbing a pathway to heaven to arrive at a statue listed simply as “La Vierge” but as my Roman Catholic friends would say “Mary, Queen of Heaven” with a coronet (and without the child Jesus cradled in her left arm), I find my gite for the next two nights. This is owned and operated by Anne, a refugee from Paris.  My arrival is timely as she has only one bed left for that night.  My wanting to stay two nights helps me secure a bottom bunk.

Two women arrive and we recognise each other from a previous gite.  With the help of the younger of the two we find we first met on the train from Lyon to Le Puy, then again at the gite in Sainte-Come d'Olt the following Sunday night.  My so called hiking kilt certainly makes me stand out, while for me it is a most comfortable garment in all weathers.

We are ten plus Anne for dinner, a grand meal indeed with a well braised lamb shank each plus all the usual varied delights I have come appreciate.  At dinner I refer to my Lidl car park observation but there does not seem to be any experience of wheelchair users and their support needs.

And so to bed.