In a haystack, France: Sleeping in the hay

June 21, 2015

I noticed the foot of the wall. The plaque reads: "The village of Long was finally liberated on 1 September 1944. The driver of a Sherman tank weighing 30 tonnes missed the bend after being blinded by smoke from flames in five neighbouring houses. The tank's track has left an indelible mark"

HAVE YOU ever spent the night in a haystack? I've always wanted to. It's the ultimate in a vagabond life, isn't it? You roam by day and fall to slumber in sweet-smelling hay by night.

Well, I'm going to do it. It's straw rather than hay, so there won't be the scent, but right now I'm sitting on bales beneath an open-sided barn, waiting to see if anybody turns up. There's rough grass and bumpy ground in front of the barn so, if the straw doesn't work out, I can pitch the tent there. But right now I have a choice between a narrow ridge of hay well sheltered by the roof, which extends further on one side than the front, or in a trench between bales where the farmer forgot to complete the stack.

These signs intrigue me. There are huge cemeteries of the fallen of the Commonwealth and sometimes just a single grave. What could have happened here that an army lost just one man?

And there he is, alone in death as he may have been in life

I felt rough today, I have to admit. Too much riding and too little food, I think. I'm not good at eating enough at the end of each day. I got to St-Riquier and looked for somewhere to eat. Just at that moment, so did everybody else. There's nothing like getting to a place with a striking abbey and a lot of history and doing it at a weekend.

St-Riquier, home to overdressed men and tottering girls

I merged to my disadvantage with sharp-suited men and long-legged girls teetering on high heels. They looked as though they had been to a wedding. But there was no bride and no men awkward in unaccustomed clothes or ponderous women in garden-party hats and hectares of flowery silk.

You can't get married in a church in France so, although it could have been a marriage blessing, town halls don't open for weddings on Sundays and it would be odd to marry one day then dress up all over again for a blessing the next. And, anyway, no happy couple, no older relatives wondering how much longer they'll wait for the lavatory, just people looking snappy but wishing they could go home.

They wobbled into a restaurant beside the abbey and so I opted for the crêperie across the road. I lost interest and devoted myself to food.

There are many joys in travelling slowly. Finding a sign that Joan of Arc had passed this way, for instance. I'd felt rough coming into town but she must have felt worse leaving it. She was on her way to a sticky end, tied to a post in Rouen and set alight.

Poor Joan, or Jeanne as she is at home, is the great symbol of France. She's been appropriated by the far right, who by law can't use the flag and instead have snaffled the symbols. To a near-fascist party keen on repelling immigrants, she's a fine example.

The Hundred Years War is complicated because most of the "English" were actually Frenchmen who didn't mind England owning where they lived because they'd done well out of it. Or they worked for people who'd done well and then been forced into the army. Most of western France was under English rule in the days when countries were owned by kings and frontiers had yet to develop.

France had been doing not at all well in dislodging the English and the war was over-running its allotted century. And then a girl said God had sent her and that, if they'd let her lead the army, heaven would see justice done.

So, according to legend, she climbed on a horse and led the charge and drove the English back across the water. As an analogy of anti-foreign political thinking, it couldn't be better could it?

And there was a further link with the war. At school, I learned of epic battles which the English won because they had been clever enough to invent longbows. They could shower the French with arrows, and do it repeatedly, while the enemy were still winding up the string on their crossbows.

The battle of Crécy took place here... but you'd never know it

The two battles they made such fuss of in history lessons were at Crécy and at Azincourt, a nearby town which the British spell as Agincourt. And the English did indeed win. But what passed unmentioned was that these were battles, not a war. The English won the battles but the French won the war.

I went through Crécy today and sure enough there was a sign to the battlefield. I'd expected more than a sign. The fight was important in French history as well and the pain of losing has subsided since 1346. And France once more owns Calais, which fell soon after the battle.

But there was really nothing at all. A tower to climb, to look out over where it happened, but no arrows, no explanations, no story. I told two women coming the other way that they were in for a disappointment. They carried on anyway and, when I saw them later, they said it had indeed been a letdown.

They were taking pictures of the sign by the road and consoling each other over what they called a sad year. I reminded them who had won in the end and it seemed to cheer them up a bit.

I began looking for somewhere to sleep about an hour back. Disappointment followed disappointment as clumps of trees in open countryside offered neither flat ground nor privacy.

This was how postmen trundled mail through the street. Most barrows have long gone but Molliens-Dreuil has found a novel use

My answer, I thought, came in a roadside sign to a hotel three kilometres to the left. I followed it through lush countryside that would have been perfect for nocturnal trespass had it not been lined by a wire fence.

More disappointment followed. A large and unexpected campground had long turned into cheap and temporary housing, to the extent that there was no reception office. And the hotel was closed for the night.

So, do I sleep here, saved from falling by the woodwork, or do I choose the safer but perhaps wetter trench at the front of the barn?

And so I'm here, on my straw bale. I'd tell you the name of the village but I took no notice as I rode in. What caught my eye was a path through a strip of wooded park beside a stream. I read the rules posted behind a glass frame at the entrance, defying anyone to have thought of a ban on camping.

An angler in the camouflage that anglers wear to go into combat with a fish looked doubtful as I rode into "his" territory. And just as quickly out of it, because the path ended at a dinky bridge closed to traffic by two boulders. It led into this neighbouring village which had no sign at its entrance. It was as I turned to go back to the park that I noticed this barn up a short track between houses. Its unintended possibilities became clear straight away.

I just have to see if anybody's going to turn up to object.

Today's ride: 114 km (71 miles)
Total: 783 km (486 miles)

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