I am at K.M. 27,5 and after that I still have 50 to go to Namur. This was a 52 plus k’s day. I stopped at 4 p.m. because it started to rain. But it did not last long. Tomorrow more, we are told.

The Meuse runs for quite a distance through both Belgium and France and I passed the first section of the Belgian border. Fumay is sitting on a kind of peninsula surrounded by Belgium. This is a very attractive town. The hills have become much higher and steeper. The houses are now mostly built from rock stones.

I am sitting outside to catch a w-fi signal and it just started to drizzle. I’ll have to move under a roof somewhere. Tomorrow is 9/11. I still remember the day like yesterday.

When I arrived in Portsmouth, Va. in 2007 after having left my last West Coast port in April 2005 and I was struck by the contrast of the sad condition many of the American men and women are in, compared to the countries I had visited in the Pacific, Indian Ocean and South Atlantic. Yesterday morning I was early for mass and sat at a cafe while hundreds of fair visitors were parading by. And I came up with the same prognosis. I saw only about 10/15% of men and women over 40 who had good posture, hair, complexion and were not overweight. These fair goers might not be your average Frenchmen but when I visited France regularly in the sixties and seventies you would never see this many overweight under-exercised people. I’d say that the Italians, Greeks and the Adriatic countries look a whole lot better in that respect.