Last year I mussed on a walk that might carry me from the North Coast of France to the South. There’s a great ISGN map that you can buy that shows all of the GR routes in the country. Any number of options exist to do this walk and many of them would be fantastic. I seem to remember having a chat to Alan Sloman about this a few years ago when he was mussing on a follow-up walk to his Lands End to John O’Groats trek.

Anyhow, in comes a comment to the original post from David McDowell whois seriously thinking of taking this on as a project. Am quite jealous. Perhaps I should think about doing this myself, even in stages if necessary. David tells me that the various tourist websites in the Pas de Calais region don’t even mention the existence of any long distance footpaths at all. Which would be a shame.

David lives in the Midlands somewhere so maybe there’s a podcast interview in this. Meanwhile — for all of you Francophiles — I’m going to get the map out and look at some options!

This bunch were amazing — you won’t have heard Breton music like this before! Talk about a big band that rocks! The conductor was an amazing guy and a superb musician. He rushed around the stage in a manner that reminded me of René in ‘ello,’ello!

Anyhow, here is their last encore.

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Nearly finished now, but here are some more images. And play the sound file for an idea of the sounds of (not the special guest artists) but the sounds of the festival goers.

 

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More jamming

Session in ‘the pub’

Two instrument makers perform on their own instruments

Watching and learning

The next generation prepares

A quiet corner

More dancing

Lone accordian

Cajun Style!

The most important instrument in a cajun band — the triangle!

Uke Cajun-style

UK luthier Jon Swayne and friends

OK, just how obsessive are you ultra lightweight and lightweight backpackers? I need to know.

On Friday I tool delivery of a new stove. Naturally I had to try it out. I brewed up some water and made a cup of coffee in a single-skin titanium mug. Fine so far. I got up on Saturday morning and went to put away some stuff that had been drying over night. This included the titanium mug.

As I lifted the mug I thought, wow that’s quite heavy. I compared it to the MSR kettle that I had also washed. Now, this is where the obsession come in. I thought, I’m sure I’d notice this if I added this to my pack (I don’t take a mug usually when hiking alone). Before I knew it my electric scales were out and I was weighing the thing. 50 grams dead on. The Kettle weighed about 100 grams. But the mug didn’t feel half the weight.

This troubled me a bit. But not as much as when I thought about what I was doing.

So, just how obsessive are you? Would you worry that your titanium mug was too heavy for the pack? I just known that Ibbotson would do such a thing. But what about the rest of you?

Confession time?

Well, the journey has begun. My TGO Challenges inevitably begin the same way, and so here I am waiting at Crewe for the Sleeper Train. I’ve an hour wait with no cafe open of anything remotely hospitable. There’s a machine but I don’t have the right change to use it. So, I’ve settled down with a copy of TGO and one of Outdoor Photographer.

The only thing I seem to have forgotten? My tick removal thingy. I do have a pair of tweezers in my Swiss Army Knife. What we do without these versitile little knives?

Feeling dreadful — a Brazilian bug and jet lag I think. Burst pipes in the house have now been repaired. Lots of stories and photos. See you all soon.

What a way to entertain a traffic jam! This guy was seriously good. We could do with him on the North Circular!

Now, that’s what I call a bookshop. Just for Humph!