Day 14

Today I walked 30 kilometers and by the end of the day I find myself where I started.

Some days are like that. Everything goes wrong, you walk in circles. Or up and down, like I did.

Some days you don't manage to get your mobile internet arranged, the right shoe of your spare pair of shoes breaks in two, you leave too late, you find dead animals everywhere on your path ranging in size from a baby mouse to a full grown deer. Some days there are too many cars on the road and your walking cart gives you electric shocks when you touch it. Some days you realise after having walked 12 kilometers that you lost something, or possibly even forgot it at the startingpoint. And you return and the day is ending already and you see a blackbird, the bird that usually finishes the day off with his song but he is flat and his song is gone and you walk on and the only thing you hope by now is that the item you lost is really still there waiting for you at your starting point.

Loosing things, I could write a book about it.

When you are travelling the question isn't if you are going to loose something but what and how valuable it is. Value can be difficult to measure. Most of the expensive things can be replaced easily. Lots of things you don't need really.
I carry two of some things with me. Things I often loose.  Two pocket knives. Usually two pairs of sunglasses but not this time. I've got a spare pair of gloves though. I didn't bring them myself but seeing lots of gloves on the road every day reminded me of how easy it is to loose them. I rescued two gloves I found on the side of the road. An odd pair, one pink and fuzzy, the other black and straight.

Today I lost my water bottle. It wasn't an expensive one and I could have replaced it without too much trouble. But. I love my water bottle. And it isn't mine in the first place. Last year my husband and I went to one of our favorite shops, the army surplus store. We both bought a water bottle, I bought a silver one, he bought a green one. I carried mine all the way to the South of France, walking and afterwards I took it with me to Portugal where the farmer I worked for drove over it with his tractor. It looked even better afterwards, shaped oddly, carrying the memory of the event with it, but it got smaller as well, so I didn't want to take it with me. Albert gave me his bottle to accompany me to Austria. I use it every day. This morning I filled it with water and took off.

I returned and on my way back I though about the consequences. Should I walk the same stretch tomorrow or take a buss? Do I have to walk every kilometer of the road to Austria? Can I break my rules? And what are my rules anyway?

I returned and the bottle was there and I put my tent on the exact same spot, the spot that was slightly lighter, yellower, than the rest of the field. It fitted perfectly.