Transcript of The Good Life France's podcast. Main feature: the guest interview.
--> Perry Taylor - Pilgrimage of Compostela 
 
JANINE MARSH 
Today we are thrilled to chat to Perry Taylor. He's a British artist who lives in the Gers, on the border with Hautes-Pyrenees. It's a land of sunflowers and Armagnac, also known as Gascony, about an hour and a half west of Toulouse. His beautiful prints and paintings of quintessential France are fun and full of character. Craggy old farmers, jolly farmers wives, cockerels and cows and daily life. They're an absolute joy to look at. I have all of his books which feature his art, and they really make you smile. But this year, Perry did something completely different. He put down his pens and paintbrush, and he walked the Pilgrim's walk, the Camino from Saint Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. And then he went on to Finisterre, the furthest western edge of the known world for the Romans. And then he went even further to Muxia in northwest Spain. In total, it was more than 900 kilometers, and it took him six weeks. It's a journey that many people dream of making. And, says Perry, it was a life changing event for him. Hello, Perry. Welcome to the Good Life France podcast. It's brilliant to have you on the show. 

PERRY TAYLOR Thank you, Janine. It's great to be here. 

JANINE MARSH You've done what many people dream of doing, me included. And that's walking the pilgrim route. It's a hell of a long walk. let's face it. What inspired you to do it in the first place? 

PERRY TAYLOR I think I can blame my best friend John Wainwright, he's a photographer and he shoots black and white. And over the years he’s invited me to join him on the walk. I have a pop-up gallery that I open up in in a barn in Marciac during the big jazz festival. It's only about three weeks long and we have about a thousand people walking into this old barn to look at the work. And so he had some photos, he captures life here in the same way that I do with my pen, with humour. You know, he'll capture the local farmers and the cows and things at the market and he's like Cartier-Bresson. I don't know if people know of him, but he was very much a photographer, like a street photographer who captured the most amazing moments in day-to-day life. And that's what John was doing. And he said, I want to go and do the Camino. And having done the cartoons about the Camino and also seeing, about 20 Kilometres from here that there's a path where the pilgrims go through and I see them all hot and bothered, surrounded by flies with big rucksacks, dusty, dirty and slightly leather skin from the sun. But it was always fascinating to see. And I thought, you know, one day I'd like to do that, but I got a dodgy knee from playing rugby too many times and my wife said, well, you'll not make it, I'll give you a week. John mentioned doing it in January and we'd been mulling it over. And then in June I said, okay, I'm going to join you. I thought I was going to go for a week, but he said, you can do the whole thing with me and I'm going to produce a book. I want to produce my own book of my adventure, my Camino. So I said okay, I'll come with you. I took my sketchbook and my watercolours and, you know, my sketch pens and stuff and off we went. 

JANINE MARSH That's such an inspiring story that you just you started chatting about it,  You both artists and you both knew that this was going to be something really special and just decided to go for it just like that. So, not years of planning like some people take - really quite spontaneous just chatting about it and then deciding to do it. 

PERRY TAYLOR Well, we did do a little bit of training around here. We went on a half a dozen walks, I suppose, but with the Jazz Festival, we left eight days after closing the gallery, two days to clear up. And so we didn't have a chance to get out and do much before that. And I played tennis twice a week and John walks the dog every day. But that doesn't quite match to the 25 to 35 kilometers that we walked every day from day one. So it was an adventure into the unknown. I really didn't know physically how good we were going to be for this, and whether we're up to the task. But we thought, you know, every journey starts with the first step. And we just decided that we’d get stuck in. They have what they call etape, which are the official places where you they recommend you stop and stay. And there are 35 of them. But a couple of times we actually stopped short and a couple of times we actually walked beyond because we felt we could do that. Or we felt that maybe with the weather, or the heat, we’ll stop a little sooner. But yeah, we made it. 

JANINE MARSH Well, I think it's brilliant. I mean, a lot of the walk takes you through countryside. And, you know, you mentioned these official stops and some you stopped and some you didn't. And, you know, it is a kind of a well-trod path in some ways, but it's also kind of off the beaten path as well, isn't it? It's not like there are roads and road signs and things like that. Or is it? Is it? Is it really well signposted? What do people expect? What can they expect if they were to follow in the footsteps of the pilgrims? 

PERRY TAYLOR It's very, very well signposted. 

JANINE MARSH Okay. 

PERRY TAYLOR You follow the yellow arrows. And then I think actually the times when I did get a little confused is when we were walking through bigger towns and cities where you had so much other street furniture, they'd get lost amongst it. And then you just see there'll be an arrow on the kerb or a stop light and you knew where to go, or you'd sit on the corner of a bridge or, you know, a corner of a building. But you have these markers, which are these sort of concrete sort of pillars, I suppose, with the symbol plus also the kilometers that you have to go and the direction each time. But I would say there were a lot of single women walking and it's a very safe walk. Everyone looks after everybody, you know, when you're walking, if you see someone stopped and you know, they've got the shoes off and bloodied feet and blisters and, you know, bandage looking like something from World War One, you stop and help and, you ask can we do anything for you? And, you know, most people will give the other a hand.

But the countryside did change. I loved it when the first day we went out the rain came down. We were in the Pyrenees and the first day was a 27K walk and we actually decided we're going to do the first part, you know, we haven't walked, we do the first ten and we stop at this one little lodge, which is great. We got there at about 11:00 in the morning, had a couple of beers and thought, okay, that was a good start. The next day off we went and it was wind, fog, rain. And so we had to put our ponchos on. We were getting blasted left and right with the wind and of course, you're top heavy with your rucksack. And we were both carrying about nine kilos, quite heavy, and it was very slippery underfoot. So we really took our time and it was a climb of 1200 metres. That's over a kilometer difference from where we started to where we ended up at the top, and then a very slippery descent on the other side. But you couldn't see anything. There was one funny moment you could see this what they call the tableau, the big viewing table, shall we say. And there in these beautiful tiles showed all the different hills and places and villages that you could see, except when we looked, you couldn't see more than about ten feet in front of you because it was so misty so we thought well it's probably a great view. And then a little bit later on, we saw this silhouette of something as we were climbing the hill and it was a food truck. It was this old French guy with his wife. And they had this food truck with a big awning. And there were about 20 people there all huddling underneath it, trying to get dry, stay dry, or having hot chocolates and coffees and cakes and then you have to stick your head around into the wind and go on. Okay. Yeah, 3, 2, 1 and off we go again. And so that that was it, then we finally got to Ronceval, which is the first big stop, it's an old monastery with about 280 beds, all split into groups of four. So you have privacy. But I have to say that it was like a river of water because everyone’s coats and trousers and boots and rucksacks were just soaked. You could jump in the swimming pool and you’d been drier. But that was an experience. And that was one day when I thought, if it's going to be like this, it's going to be hell you know. But yeah, that was just a watery baptism. 

JANINE MARSH That actually sounds quite tough. And I was going to ask you actually about, you know, were there any low points where you just thought to yourself I just don't want to do this anymore. I want to get on a train or a bus or I'm going to buy a bike and I'm just going to carry on that way rather than keep walking. Was there a point where you actually did feel like that? 

PERRY TAYLOR Yeah, a couple of times. One time was emotional. The other one was physical. The physical one was the fact that these walking shoes that I'd had six months and I've been using, you know, quite often going out with them. And I thought these are, you know, the bee's knees. I'm done. They're worn in my feet, nowhere to go in them. You know, I'm not going to get blisters. Wrong, because I wasn't walking 30 kilometers a day before in them as I suddenly found myself doing, and I started getting some pretty nasty buggers on, on both heels. And so I was putting plasters on and all sorts of other stuff and lots of people were saying you need to do this, need to do that. When we got to the past Pamplona where they run the bulls. And we came through there probably about two weeks after the running of the bulls. And you can still see the big old gates and the sawdust and the sand on the squares where they'd obviously been running through. And then we got to Burgos, and just after that, it had been a very hot day and we'd started very early, but still it was, it was still pretty hot  - 33, 34 degrees. We came to this village, and I thought, I don't know what I'm going to do. These shoes are killing me. And I saw this shop, this Camino shop, where this guy was selling everything and anything you can imagine. So I went and I just explained and he saw my feet. Okay he said and he suggested a pair of sandals. You know, with the Velcro straps. I thought sandals! Really?! He said, no, these are really good. They’re from a very good brand. I mean, they weren't cheap, I have to say. But he said, these will save you. And I put them on. It was like putting marshmallows on my feet. It's like, oh, oh yes please, you know, where do I sign? And that was it. So and I got myself a couple of pairs, extra pairs of merino wool socks with the double layer. Merino wool is great because it has an antibacterial compound in it, which is natural, and I also have merino wool underpants and and t-shirts, they don't smell. You can put them on for four or five, six days. It doesn't smell. I swapped every day anyway. You'd wash, hand wash your stuff every day and hang it up. But the other thing is that it dries almost instantly. Whereas, you know cotton t-shirts don’t and you see people hanging wet clothes off the back of their rucksacks. Yeah. So yes, that was definitely one where I almost stopped. I thought I was, you know, my wit's end. And I had another time. I just had one day, an emotional day, all sorts of things going through my head, conflicts with family, this sort of stuff and I got really, really down on myself. Yeah, I almost stopped. But it was, it was good having people around you, chatting away. Then before you know it, you're back on your feet again, you know, mentally and physically. 

JANINE MARSH It's such a long walk. I mean, I know that you walked 900 kilometers and I believe looking from your Facebook page, that you intended in the first place to walk 800 kilometres to Santiago de Compostela. But then when you got there, they walked a bit further and you went on to Finisterre and then on to Muxia and Spain. Do you think of yourself as like the Forrest Gump of walking the Pilgrims route? You just kept going. 

PERRY TAYLOR It's funny, you know, because John was taking photos of the funniest stuff around. There was, you know, there's this cow sign, you know, warning about herds of cow and someone had written “Buen Cowmino”, because there was some really quite funny and quite philosophical graffiti, someone had written ‘run Forrest run’. So that made me laugh. But when we got to Santiago which is quite busy, I would say that 99.9% stop there. But the real joy that we had, we stayed there for two nights and we thought, you know, we've got to get out of here. And there were a few of us walking together, one lady from Holland and someone from Denmark, another from Mexico and, oh, yes, and we also had another guy from Italy, another from Austria. And yeah, it was a good mix of people. And we thought, no, we're walking on and suddenly, you left all the noise behind and we're walking through beautiful tracks between the pine trees and eucalyptus trees, and you can hear the birds again. And there was something about it. Or maybe we were just feeling it, wanting to feel it. But we could sense the sea air. And we walked 30 kilometres each day, and on the third day I saw a glimpse of sun reflecting of water. And, you know, it's like as kids, when you used to say, I can see the sea, it was very much like that. And then we had the sea off to our left and breaking through different key holes in the landscape, our pace increased and, you know, the weights on the back was, it didn't mean anything anymore. We just, we just got on with it, we were so happy to get to the end. So that I think was definitely payback, you know, I think it was a reward for having walked on. And I felt so much more by finishing in Finisterre than I did in Santiago. 

JANINE MARSH You said on your Facebook page, because I've been following this journey, that you found it a life changing experience. And I wonder if you could tell us, you know, what did you mean by that? What did you expect and what was different from what you expected and how did you feel it changed your life. 

PERRY TAYLOR Hmm. To say no to people a lot more is one thing I've learnt and look after myself. You know, life is short. There were certain characters I met that really marked me. A French guy, Jean. He lost his husband two months before. He was travelling with us for about a week and he said, ‘But he's with me.’ And he tapped his back and I think he had these ashes of his husband in there. There was another lady from Australia that John met…  we were trying to find where John had gone and he had fallen behind. He turned up about half an hour later and he'd been crying. Mind you we did a lot of crying. Be aware when you do this, you'll be doing a lot of hugging and crying on this. When he came back, he said he'd met this Australian lady who was in her late sixties, I suppose, and she was going to do the Camino with the husband, but he became ill and eventually couldn't walk. And in the end, in the end, he died and she put on boots and picked up her bag and was walking for him, the two of them. But she was there on her own. And so that involved a huge big hug from John. He took a great photograph of her. I'm sure she's going to be in his book. When we were walking, we met this couple. He was 80 and she was 77. And they were walking their 15th Camino. And he'd done, I think, most of them. And he said, for my 80th birthday, I promised myself: my last Camino. And we pass them every day and they would be struggling along with their sticks and their rucksacks. And, you know, we passed them. But every day, after a couple of hours, they’d appear at the back and say hi, how are you doing? And they put their bags down and then the next day off they go again. Sadly, when we got to Pamplona, about a week in, he arrived and he just looked disheveled and was limping. And she said he fell. He hadn’t seen a hole, put his stick in and he put his weight on it and ended up falling off the track. And this was on a on a slope. He rolled down off the slope, hit a tree, thankfully, which caught him. And they managed to get him back up again, but he twisted his knee so badly that he could hardly walk. And so the next morning, having slept on it and thought they might be okay, but the next morning they came to us and said, we're going to the train station. That was so sad. But John had a great photograph of the two of them and I'm sure that they will be in the book as well. But I cried, in fact we were all of us were in tears for them. It was so sad, you know. But yeah, he done 15 in his life. There were other people that I met that said, I've just given up my job. I don't want to do it anymore. I want to do something with my life. And then they were walking onto Portugal and were going through South America. Another was going to Croatia… That told me, you know, life is short, it is short, and I think you need to make what you can from it. And I find that, you know, I've been in the advertising business a long time and I gave all that up. I had a burn out, came to France and re-found myself, as they might say, but also that, you know, I've had a lot of success with my drawings, that I've also become a sort of a slave to the success. So, you know, people want a piece of you all the time, having to be at different places, different fairs. Everyone's wanting a wine label or, you know, a map or a logo. And I've been doing that a lot of the time and realising the projects that I want to work on, they get put on the back burner, they get put in the freezer and they just don't get a chance. And coming back, looking at the state of my studio, which has got piles of stuff everywhere. I know that I need to declutter, to declutter my life, say no to a lot more people. I've also got a whole load of people on my social media that I don't really want to hear from anymore because it's all rubbish and just really fine tuning it down to just having the simplicity. Because when you're travelling with just two pairs of socks, two underpants, two t-shirts, a waterproof and a sleeping bag and two litres of water, you find that, you know, every day is great. You don't have to worry about what you're going to be wearing. It's either red or blue, depending on which is the cleanest. You know, that's all. I think the simplicity of that, and the conversations that you had around tables, you do often have communal dinners in the places where we were and it was wonderful. People were engaged with each other and looking each other in the eye and a lot of empathy, sympathy, and support. And I thought - that's what life is all about and that's what I want to go back to. 

JANINE MARSH That is actually quite a change, isn't it, to experience that need to focus on what is actually truly important in your life and not the myriad of small things, of petty things are things that really don't have very much meaning, but they're part of our everyday life and we're all bombarded by too many messages, too many emails, too many advertisements. The TV’s on, the radio’s on, this is on, that's on. And to actually have that experience where you realise that what's important is the people that you love, the things around you, the things that mean something to you and to those that you love. That's a big thing, isn't it, really? 

PERRY TAYLOR Absolutely. You know, not wasting my time on people that are just wasting my time. This is interesting. There was one guy we met on the first two or three days. Joe, an Irish guy, Northern Irish. He must have been 70, wiry, wiry as hell. And we were chatting the way that you do and I said, have you done this before? He said, Oh yeah, this is my fifth time. Well, I've got nothing at home. There’s nothing there that pulls me. And you'll see the Camino does this. It's what they call a tiny life. And it is, it's like a little microcosm of what life is all about, but you're only doing in that small period of time with people. It's a fleeting moment, but it encompasses all the things that I think are really important, and it's the simple stuff. And he said, when I finish this one next year, I'm going to go again. And I tell this to people I know back home and they just don't get it. All of them talk about the physical endurance and having walked but you know, you've got to walk the walk to know that the physical thing really, really doesn't matter. It's not the destination that matters. It's the journey and the experience of each day. And the people that you meet. That's what makes you rich. And I have another friend of mine that gave me lots of tips before. PJ. He was he was really good, ex-army. He's walked it three times and he's going again. And I think he's going to be doing the one from the centre of France down to Saint Jean Pied de Port. He's doing that for the second time and he just cannot wait. He cannot wait. He said, ‘I'm training because the one thing is I pride myself in never getting blisters. But if I do, you know, that's fine. But I have to say, I'm just so looking forward to the landscape.’ It’s the simplicity, meeting people and unplugging. In fact, actually it sounds a bit bad, I haven't looked at the news. I don't look at any news sites. I don't turn the TV on because what can I do with all that information? I can't do anything but share that burden. And it's another thing that sits around in my head. I think I'm just blessed that I live in the middle of the countryside where I have a beautiful view of the Pyrenees. You know, I can hear cockerels and cow bells and sheep in the fields a mile away and you know, the cranes that just come by because they're now going to spend winter here. Having left all the noise behind, I feel so much more at peace. 

JANINE MARSH Sounds amazing. Do you feel fulfilled by it? Do you think you'll do it again? Was there a moment when you were doing this when you thought, that's it. I don't need to do this anymore. I am fulfilled. Or did you come back and think I'm not going to do it yet. You know, my feet were hurting badly, but I might do it again one day. 

PERRY TAYLOR Okay. I'm back. I've been back. What are we now? Just over a month. Yes. But my head isn't. I'm not back. I am reflecting all the time. And then there’s the fact that John took 6500 photos. 

JANINE MARSH Wow. That's a lot of photos. 

PERRY TAYLOR He's going through them all the time and he keeps sending some of the images. And you remember this bit and then the characters, the people, we met some Japanese guys that had fantastic camera and they were always chatting - one guy was also a photographer. And then I remember this Dutch lady that was travelling all on her own and she had the most fantastic laugh that just drew you in. It was like Dudley Moore. And you know, when he started laughing, everyone started laughing and yeah, oh, I’d do it again. I would, I would definitely do it again. I'm not sure I'd take the same route. You know, you have good days, bad days. I think there were some good memories or other memories that, you know, maybe just a little bit too raw, sometimes. I'd like to do it again, but maybe do other parts. I've been told that the Portuguese route is great. The northern route actually goes along the coast. That's further north than we did because we went through Burgos and Lyon to Santiago. But you can go along the coast. That's a tough one because you are often going along the coast and then up into the hills and coming back down again to the coast to stay overnight. But that is a quieter route. That's also about 700 plus kilometres. And I probably do that in maybe two lots. If you going to it in one hit you're going to need to take five to six weeks, but it's not for the faint hearted at all. I'd definitely like to do it to in maybe a couple of years time. But it's funny, I've spoken to a couple of people at the tennis court yesterday and two of them said, ‘you know, I would love to do it, but I'm not going to do it because I know that it will change me and I don't want to come back and disrupt an already contented home life. I don't know if it would be good or bad for me to do it, but I know that it will affect me very much.’ And these are people that walk in the mountains all the time. They go over the border into Spain and they're walking as a husband and wife team. So they feel if they went on their own, they’d probably be impossible to live with afterwards. 

JANINE MARSH You're famous for your books and for your art. I mean, I visited the Gers and I went to the chateau of Lavardens and I saw lots of your prints all over the walls, you know, you’re like their favourite artist. I actually have some of your prints on my wall. I have all of your books. So to me, you are famous and I think you are actually really, really well known around the world and your art depicts the laid back lifestyle of the Gers region. You know, it's a place where people really love their food. They're really friendly and welcoming. They love a glass of wine. They love to welcome visitors. So will you be creating some art, something different that captures your Camino experience? 

PERRY TAYLOR I think so, yes. To be honest, it's still a bit raw. I haven't really put pen to paper, actually I have I’m lying, because when I got back Caroline my wife said, you realise you haven't drawn any Christmas cards this year? And my distributor who takes my cards all around southwest France, he said, I'm not sure if I was going to be taking the collection this year because you haven’t got any new ones.’ So I'd been back for five days. I went out into the garden in my shorts thinking, I've got to think Christmas, which is kind of difficult when you’re in the sunshine, you know. I just I thought about it. And eventually, you know, it doesn't come easy, but I started sketching for thoughts and ideas in the end, I came up with three, which I thought were great, and so that was it. 

On the Camino, when I went into the sketchbook and I started actually just creating it like a graphic novel, I was doing lots of like what the French call a BD, a bande-dessinée. And so I was drawing windows and dropping stuff in. And certainly that first week, it was easier for me to sketch it out because because I'm very visually oriented. And so I could do that. And with the support of John's photos, with times and places, I could then match them up. But after about a week, ten days, and I was posting stuff on Facebook, it all became too much. I thought, am I a journalist? Or in which case, I mean, looking at stepping back to show other people what's going on or I'm actually fully engaged in what I'm doing here. And I realised that I wasn't and I realised that getting the next post up on Facebook was something that would stop me from sitting at the table with my new friends. And I thought, No, this is not right, I'm not doing this. So I said, Sorry, guys, I'm stopping. 

The Camino is something that, you know, people who walk will understand it, but it is actually a pilgrimage. I'm thinking of Chaucer, you know, and all their tales. Okay. I wasn't anywhere near as bawdy as his tales, but no, it was… it will, I'm sure, bring me some inspiration. Absolutely. 

JANINE MARSH I know that you are a member of the Association of Musketeers in the Gers. Do you think you might be the only musketeer to have walked the Camino? 

PERRY TAYLOR It's called the Company of the Musketeers. I'm in the Grand Company of Leonardo DiCaprio and all these different actors and singers and directors of companies, which was a huge honour, actually. You get a big blue sash and your Musketeer cross. And that was great. But I don't know, walking it. I don't know. I saw people on horseback certainly that looked rather musketeer-like but none that were carrying swords! 

And you know, there is a sort of a book you get like a huge annuaire of all the people that are members with the contact so in know it could be that I could turn up in Sicily or I can turn up in, you know, in New York or in Singapore. And there would be a musketeer there that I could contact and they would apparently be opening the doors to me as a fellow musketeer. But I've not tried that one out yet. But no, I wasn't any aware of anyone. Well, actually, the other thing, you know, what I love about it is that with the walking, it didn't matter where the people came from, what they earned and what they did for a job, what their religion was, if they had one, it just didn't matter. It was the person themselves. And you saw people that were maybe quiet or shy as we walked. They would also take part and also become more comfortable with the company. And I think one thing we also learned is you don't learn much when your mouth is open, and just to give people space for them to talk and say things. 

JANINE MARSH I really love that. Well, what would you say to anyone dreaming of following in your footsteps? I mean, I would absolutely love to do this. And I now know that I should take merino wool socks and a pair of sandals and probably practice walking a lot more before I go. But is there any one thing that people who are dreaming of making this walk should do or consider? 

PERRY TAYLOR I'm not sure if I can advertise in here, but there are two great things. There's one great book, which is the Michelin Guide: Camino de Santiago. It's a little green guide. It's a Bible of the Camino, which is great, and it shows you all the different stages. It shows you where what the facilities are in a village, whether there's a bus station, whether there's, you know, a cafe, restaurants, all that sort of thing. It also shows you a profile of the walk so you can then see how much you're going to be climbing or how much can be dropping. And it gives you a breakdown of the kilometres between each of the particular villages and places where you could perhaps stop. It also gives you telephone numbers of the accommodation, the number of beds and whether they take bookings or not and other facilities. So that is, I think is a great guide. But there's an even better one out there, I think, which is more up to date because this Michelin guide is probably, it's printed every year, two years, so it will get out of date. This is great app called Camino Ninja. You can plot in where you’re going to start and where you went to end up that day and it has all the different routes. 16 or 17 Camino routes all heading towards Santiago and you can plot that in and it will show you the breakdown of all the different places, the distances, the profile of the landscape and photos, the places you can stay and even is plugged into Booking.com, which is great. We didn't book very often. We only did it two or three times as we were coming to Santiago, because there, you know, there were more people on the road, of course, more demand. So occasionally we would call up ahead and we'd just reserve a bed. But if you stay in the normal municipal accommodation, all the ones which are run by volunteers, they don't take bookings. It's first come, first serve. So yes, definitely get try walking, get fit, put Vaseline on your feet and between your toes every day. 

JANINE MARSH Really, that sounds horrible. 

PERRY TAYLOR It means that you're not chafing and it keeps your skin supple and it's really good for stopping getting blisters and keep your toenails very short. 

JANINE MARSH Okay, great advice. Camino Ninja, Michelin Guide for the Camino, Merino socks, Vaseline between the toes, keep your toenails short and practice before you go. 

PERRY TAYLOR Yeah, and you know what? Learn a little bit of Spanish. Just a few words. Just a few words. So yes, it helps to have a little bit of Spanish and I used a thing called DEEPL, which is great. It's another app. It’s DEEPL. It's kind of weird thing, but it's DEEPL And that is a translation programme. And so I'll just tap in stuff. It'll give me the Spanish equivalent. 

JANINE MARS Well, that sounds really handy. 

PERRY TAYLOR Yeah, it is very handy. When you're walking, I would suggest always having a couple of energy bars with you, because on two or three occasions, because we got up so early, we went out three or four times with a head torch, simply because we wanted to get moving and get a few kilometres under our belt before the heat. And that was great and you think, oh, we’ll get breakfast in the next village because they're a little lazy at breakfast time. You’re not going to get the boulangerie like you get in France who open at six in the morning. No, I mean, they'll do breakfast from maybe 9:00 onwards. So on occasion we’d walk from one village to another to another and do like 15 K before we could get anything to eat or drink. 

JANINE MARSH Brilliant tips. Brilliant tips. Perry, thank you so much for joining us. And it's been really wonderful chatting to you. I mean, I knew I wanted to do this before I talked to you, but now I really, really want to do it. But I think I might do it without my husband. I think I might just actually just do it on my own and approach it with a different mindset, not as an adventure as such, but maybe a way of finding myself in some ways. I think that's what I've taken away from this. 

PERRY TAYLOR You know, someone said, it's a phrase that came up quite often. They say: the Camino provides, and that was either spiritual or physical or I don’t know. Sometimes you couldn't find anything or and then suddenly something would happen, and you think, wow. And so people say, well, the Camino provides. You get out of it what you put into it. Like everything in life, I suppose. So we went the two of us, but often, John walked on ahead or I would walk on ahead. We had a couple of days where we didn't sleep at the same place, you know, we caught up with each other. It's good to be walking on your own. I think it's good for your head and it gives you an opportunity just to maybe even be the person that you're not always when you're in your normal life. You know, I think we all take on a persona in different ways and we have expectations from others of who we are. I mean, John was saying, he said, you're know at home I'm a husband and a dad. And here I'm John. And he became known as the man with the camera on the Camino. I tell you what, that book, when it comes out, he’s just calling it “Camino a personal reflection through photographs” of his walk. It's going to be a big coffee table book, I think. 

JANINE MARSH I can't wait to see it. Perry, thank you so much for joining us. It's been brilliant. 

PERRY TAYLOR My pleasure. 

JANINE MARSH Thank you.

End of transcript. The Good Life France's podcast is available on all podcast platforms, on TheGoodLifeFrance.com