All the light we [almost did not] see...

Saint Malo, France, 17 September 2024, and beyond

“Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth.”

The above quote is from Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), a most intriguing 19th century Danish theologian, philosopher, poet and social critic with whose work I have only recently become familiar. He appears to have made a very wide range of pronouncements or commentaries on life as he saw it, and some 200 years later those that I have read still appear to have currency.

But why start this post with a comment on adversity. Well, in essence it goes like this ...

We left home both feeling ever so slightly off-colour. Janet had been volunteering at a large community event for the week prior to our departure, and may have collected some bug there. Who knows? And indeed, it doesn't matter. But by the time we left London we'd both headed downhill, but Janet much worse than me. She didn't leave the cabin for the entire ferry trip, and by the time we got to Saint Malo all she wanted was sleep. Trouble was that the ferry arrived at 0710, and check-in at our apartment wasn't until 1500. So I spent an hour or so wandering the streets of Saint Malo looking for a hotel room for the day. After four attempts I had success, and so we transported her to the room where she slept all day, then eventually to the apartment where she then slept for the next 36 hours. And not getting better. Eventually we headed to the emergency department at the Saint Malo hospital, where she was prescribed some antibiotics and other medications by the very handsome young doctor, with the hope that these will start to knock the bug over.

So this isn't a good start to the trip, and at one level, an adversity. But the real irritation for her in this is that the whole trip across the channel to Saint Malo had been at Janet's suggestion and her desire to see Saint Malo having fallen in love with the wonderful story All The Light We Cannot See, both the book by  Anthony Doerr and the subsequent Netflix series. And in return the travel gods rewarded her a fairly nasty bug and three days of sleep so that she had no real chance to explore the wonderful old town (intra muros) of Saint Malo.

So far it's ended up working out not too dramatically. After exploring the more drastic options (cancelling the trip, major re-arrangement of trip) we've decided to press on. Post hospital we did create the opportunity for a quick hour walk around Saint Malo's old town ramparts, so she didn't miss out completely, prior to heading off to the next town where I'd arranged an earlier check-in so that she could again curl up for more much-needed sleep. Based on our lay interpretations of the medical diagnosis she should start to properly come good in another 2/3 days.

Saint Malo is a big town (population circa 50,000), but as is to be expected, the centre of focus is the old town. A few shots follow:

This last one might make a bit of sense to those of you who have read the book/seen the series. Put your imagination to work ...

Our next stop after Saint Malo was Mont Saint Michel, only 50 klms or so up the coast. Supposedly one of the most visited places in France.

None of the above photos really do justice to these two quite spectacular places, but for the moment they'll have to do.

I'll finish with a photo of me and the sick one at the top of Mont Saint Michel this morning. This'll be my last post until probably Le Puy, when hopefully everyone is fully well for the start of the big walk ...