Day 17- VaylatsToday is Holy Thursday and it is mid afternoon here. By the time you read this it will be Good Friday in Australia. The three feasts of Easter are rather important to us, but while we are travelling it is often difficult to attend the various services. Even where we are staying tonight in a convent there are only the daily offices to attend.
An easy day moving 16km to the Convent of the Sisters of Jesus in Vaylats. Weather still perfect and today we met Chantelle a retired school teacher from a large city who moved to a small village for the past 3 years. She found this village to be the very opposite to the one we spoke about two days ago. She is well accepted in the village and took us to meet one of her friends Monique, who runs a very nice restaurant and joined us for coffee. The restaurant was not open at the time but Monique welcomed us all the same. Chantelle travels every afternoon from her village to Vaylats to attend the afternoon office with the nuns in the convent. She has walked the Chemins Saint Jacques and is planning to walk the Camino Frances in her retirement The restaurant is rated in the Michelin guide and Jamie Oliver seems to be a good friend of Monique. There was a European cooking book by Jamie there I hadn’t seen before so Enda and I photographed a couple of new recipes. Incidentally the restaurant prices were reasonable, 18 Euros for a set meal without wine. The village is called Bach and is on the road to nowhere. The restaurant has a splendid French country atmosphere and should I ever return to France (by car) I think I will head towards nowhere. There are still many forests in the country through which we walk. The GR65 markings have been poor the past few days. Whoever, arranged the layout must have been Irish. For those who do not know, should you ever seek directions in Ireland, the response will always starts with “Do you see that road there, then don’t go that way“. The markings here seem predominantly marked by the cross saying “don’t go this way” while the correct path is often unmarked! At one time “the don’t go this way” was near the base of a tree and the grass had grown up and obscured it. Nevertheless we have managed to get this far with only one significant error. As you walk through the villages you are struck by the number of names of the fallen on monuments in the first world war. These villages today are hardly of any size whatsoever. All as a result of WW1 as too many Enfants de France were lost. I know we have lost many fine young Australians in WW1 (60,000) and that loss affected far more families and the social fabric of Australia for more than one generation. But in France besides the names on the war memorials you see much more physical evidence even to this day; 100 years later. If you have ever travelled through the French countryside and villages you will see very old houses in a state of ruin or very near it. These were substantial old buildings throughout France that were abandoned after WW1 when young men didn’t return to run the farms or marry and start families. Let us pray that the current hostilities, threats and hatreds, so evident today in so many places and ways can be resolved; and that attitudes of love prevail. Let this be an Easter prayer and hope for all.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Jerard & Enda's
Archives
May 2017
Would you like us to Pray for you or a loved one?
Just email [email protected] to have it included. It may take a couple of days for the name to appear under the useful links tab |