people – The Wildart Wanderer

How to travel light

I could go into details about the brand of my tent (the fact that it weighs a tad more than a kilo is a great selling point) or tell you that I have the lightest sleeping bag I could find and it works most of the time, except for Russian Winters and damp river campsites. I also carry very little clothing because it’s easy to find more. But what is most important to me is travelling without personal baggage.

In fact, I find that the longer I travel the more things I discard.

Judgement has been a big one. Not the type that you need when you make decisions about where to pitch the tent or should I swim in crocodile infested waters, but judging other people. It’s a human thing, something we all do, but it feels so much lighter to accept the idiosyncrasies of other people who are mostly trying their best in a crazy world. I’m certainly not perfect at it but I’m practising hard.

People are just people everywhere. Some of us have enough food and shelter, some of us don’t. Some live in safe places while for others it’s a war zone. But we are all trying to get through the day, hoping to make a difference in something small or big. Everyone needs to relax when things are stressful. And we all want to be loved and acknowledged, to be accepted and appreciated.

That’s the start of what may grow into a very long list.

I’d love to hear what you have discarded!

At Home in Madrid

Madrid is awesome. There’s no doubt that the architecture is amazing and the people are cool. Of course I shouldn’t sleep, there’s bars waiting with great tapas and craft beer, an overload of fabulous images and people to absorb. But I’m on a mission. I need to be in France.

I started off in a tiny village this morning, some two hours from Granada at the bottom end of Spain. I’ve been house-sitting. That’s where the dog came into the picture. (https://wildartwanderer.travel.blog/2019/07/24/the-dog/)

Ten hours later I’m in the big city and in a few more I’ll be in Toulouse. It’s a reckless way to travel but I’ve been to Madrid before and I have a deadline for another house-sit job near Toulouse.

I’ll be on another bus heading for another home. It’s been that way ever since I began travelling two years ago. Nothing stable. Everything to discover. In the meantime, I want to remember that there are so many people who are genuinely homeless without a safety net. I’m one of the lucky ones.

A day at the river

“Breathe in, breathe out. This is a sanctuary. Take off your weary clothes and the shoes that no longer shield your soles from the grit of the journey. “
Jeni McMillan

It’s another hot day at Laguépie in the south of France and everyone is hanging out at the river. The lifeguard has a steady gaze. There’s screams, splashing and laughter as this crazy, inflatable spaceship rock and rolls.

The local kids are smoking cigarettes in the shade, wrapped in each others arms or taking selfies while Parisian girls cluster at the edge and dry their long black braids in the sun.

We are all shapes and sizes, ages and backgrounds with the same language of laughter. We are residents, visitors, travellers and refugees.

Thanks to Val Johnson, for introducing me to some of the guys who have made it to France against enormous odds and found refuge in this small community. Val has been tireless with fund-raising, finding homes and resources and for encouraging diversity and inclusiveness. I’m also grateful to the people I met for their generosity and smiles. I wish everyone a future where peace and happiness is as simple as a day at the river.

Homage to Henri

Okay, I have to confess that I’m not a newbie in France. I made a life here once and it was sweet as the grass that Henri Jambart scythed by hand and fed to his tiny herd of cattle. Henri was my neighbour and my friend and he worked the land with sweaty love. He was the tail end of a tradition that went back further than he could count.

He didn’t go to the Second Great War due to an accident where his hand was caught in a machine. I knew that was a fortunate thing but Henri felt otherwise. The other men had stories to tell around the kitchen table and different scars to compare.

I learned many things from this man; that every season had it’s place, independence was to be valued at the cost of relationships and friendship could be made across generational, language and cultural boundaries.

I visited the cemetery recently and sat with his grave but I am sure that Henri is with his fields. I found a ball of string he used to line up his plots of Summer vegetables. The old oak tree knows. It stands sentinel over it all.