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Day Eighteen: An Ill Wind

Another much-ado-about-nothing day, I'm afraid. Raining again -- and when not raining, a cruel wind battered everything to shreds. The bad weather brought out the last traces of my rheum, so I am literally a sniveling wretch. Madame would not let me leave the hotel this morning until I had changed into a sweater that covered my throat.

Headed out southeast to try and see more Catharist sites -- Querigut, Usson and Montaillou to be exact -- but the roads over the high passes weren't safe after the rough winter. When I saw a great orange Department of Highways truck scooping up the asphalt crumbs ahead preparatory to patting them down into a road again, I headed north to Perpignan.

...Where I toodled around without really seeing anything or wanting to see anything. The Rousillon is dang pretty, though. Very delicate pale greenery, swaying catkins and flouncy bushes against the light sandy soil -- vines showing green, wisterias bent under their burden of blossom.

About this time, the inevitable results of the great vat of hot tea Madame made me drink right before leaving in the morning began to make themselves felt -- for the first time I truly regretted being a woman as I surveyed the featureless landscape. A blessing on the heads of the good burghers of St. Paul Fenhouilet, who installed actual flushing equipment in their public WC (I have never, and will never, need to go to the bathroom badly enough to use one of those terrible squat-pit things -- hey, I've got yards of skirts.)

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