Friday December 7th, 2007
Well, I think I'm almost ready to start the post-H2H work -- correcting / completing the website, transmuting the base material of blog into an elegant and entertaining narrative, deciding what to do about the photos and the GPS logs, and so on... -- but first some unfinished business: the short tale of the last day of the H2H.
After one of the best breakfasts we had had on the entire trip, at the charming B&B La Demeure, we started from Eyguieres around 10AM... in the rain. This was both unusual, since it had hardly rained in Provence since Spring, and appropriate, since it had also rained on us during our first day of hiking so many months ago. But we didn't care much... it was, after all, the last day.
We walked for the most part along fairly quiet backroads on the south side of the Alpilles until Aureille. There the showers stopped and we turned north to climb over the hills... although since our maximum altitude was barely 200m higher than Aureille, it is perhaps a little bit of an exaggeration to call it a climb. Around midday we stopped for a picnic lunch by the side of the road, and soon, after one last look backwards, we started our descent towards the lovely village of Eygalieres.
Some time later, a couple of hundred yards before we got to our house, we were met by a procession led by Lidia (aka Penelope), who was unable to withstand temptation any longer. Richard was there, and Bea and Arnulf, and various other friends and relatives, and after many greetings and hugs and photos we finally walked through our gate at around 3:30PM.. four months and four days after we started... exactly as planned.
It was quite a feeling.
And then came the Neverest Fest, which although not totally Dionysiac, ran for near on a week instead of the three days that were planned. Ah well, nobody's perfect. :-)
And that's about it for now. I'll post intermittently over the next couple of months as there are new things to see on the site, or as (and if) the narratative takes shape. I hope that you have enjoyed reading about the H2H as much as I enjoyed hiking and writing about it. Many thanks to you all!
