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NICHOLAS LUARD – A Caravan of Us – ‘ T his is a day for angels to walk’, Wolfgang said next morning, a couple of hours after we had set out. He was right. The sky was clear, the sunlight soft and warm, the winding lanes patterned with shadow, the air fresh and scented. There was a whole procession, a caravan of us now, tramping the Way. Two delightful young French girls had joined us. Some handsome Barcelonan Spaniards were there. Stubbly-bearded little Luis. The girls from Brussels. Jorge and Paco. The Germans, and a dozen more. We all stopped at eleven o’clock and breakfasted off peaches, home-baked bread and copas of chill white wine. From The Field of the Star, 1998 150
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– Brevi Passi . . . – N ot everything about walking is caught in a thousand words or more. So here come some shorter pieces for you, as your pace slows, as your stop nears. Stopping for a gelato, a doppio espresso, perhaps a recently mentioned ‘copas of chill white wine’ – and thinking on these thoughts for added refreshment. I walked in those Italian gardens; walked in the mind as well as the flesh. – Vernon Lee After Holland I still see every separate willow leaf. – W. G. Sebald To walk the Alps is to know the flowers and beasts, stony tracks and wide horizons; the pleasurable sensation of possessing legs and lungs, and a stomach. – Simone de Beauvoir I choose the middle gully through a mixture of hunch and eenie-meenie-miney-mo . . . – Robert Macfarlane My father considered a walk among the mountains as like church-going. – Aldous Huxley 151

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NICHOLAS LUARD

– A Caravan of Us –

‘

T his is a day for angels to walk’, Wolfgang said next morning, a couple of hours after we had set out.

He was right. The sky was clear, the sunlight soft and warm, the winding lanes patterned with shadow, the air fresh and scented. There was a whole procession, a caravan of us now, tramping the Way. Two delightful young French girls had joined us. Some handsome Barcelonan Spaniards were there. Stubbly-bearded little Luis. The girls from Brussels. Jorge and Paco. The Germans, and a dozen more.

We all stopped at eleven o’clock and breakfasted off peaches, home-baked bread and copas of chill white wine.

From The Field of the Star, 1998

150

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