I don’t know what was wrong with my legs today.
The going should have been easy but all the diversions yesterday had exhausted me mentally, it really was quite confusing and stupid.

The going today was flat but into a fierce wind and after half an hour I turned around and headed for a cheap place I had seen sign-posted the night before.

I really should have learnt my lesson from the night before with the signs around here, eventually reaching the place I was delighted to discover it was full, another place across the river was as expensive as it and its proprietor were beautiful, the third was amusing.

Damp, bedraggled and in no great state of mind I opened the door allowing the icy gusts from outside to accompany my entrance. The piano stopped playing, the monkey hid under the piano stool and the bar tender reached under the bar for a shotgun, but by far the most dangerous thing in the room was the look that the clientele gave me, I’m certain there is a regulation here that requires them to hold a license.

This place was full too, so I turned around again and headed in the direction of Bad Koesen without realising that Bad Koesen is a Kur ort, which means its expensive. It does not necessarily imbue the place with anything else, style, beauty, effectiveness. It usually just means some King or Princess once took a bath, had a rather good cup of tea or evacuated their bowels in a particularly cleansing and pleasing way.

That it was a Kur Ort was instantly obvious, there are a number of indicators, the easiest other than old people stumbling around in large groups of frailty in imminent danger of a fracture, is the unnaturally elevated accommodation prices.

So, I passed straight through – there is a joke here but Im not going searching for it. As I was heading out of Bad Koesen,  I saw this sign so I followed it, Grandmas cooking sounded just right.

It was an interesting place, run by a woman who I could only describe as a witch. The place was packed with stuff, herbs hanging from the walls, strange shaped figurines, old paintings, well used children’s toys and a vast expanse of stuff amongst which I found a place for my bike.

I ordered a beer and thought about how I was going to sleep as the railway line was below my window and about why I was so weak. The woman who I had been talking too appeared with a snack for me, she was trying to make me feel better as Id expected to pay 16e and not 25e. I suspect she took pity on me but not enough to drop the price. I couldn’t find the energy or interest to discuss it any further and just accepted the situation.

I spent what remained of the afternoon organising my photo library, it is in a real state with lots of doubles, inaccurate dates and some scans have file sizes in tens of megabytes – oooow.

After a while and a couple of beers I was given the grand tour of the place. You really would not believe what lies behind the building. There is a flower garden bursting with life, her bed is in the middle of it. She told me that she sleeps outside in all weather but as the bed is close to the edge, I think driving rain will send her inside.

There is a roe deer foal she has rescued that now lives in a cage, birds and butterflies everywhere. I tried to change rooms to one that looked onto this garden but she wasn’t having it. Dinner was good even if the portion would have fed two hard working farmers and I was feeling much better the next morning.