We had a service of the anointing of the sick. This is the most beautiful service in Lourdes where, to accompaniment of Taize-style chant, the sick are blessed and then anointed with holy oil. I was only making the pilgrimage for the OMV which my daughter helped run. It is a pilgrimage for young people and older visitors should not impose themselves.

But a pilgrimage to Lourdes is all the same unless you have a job to do, are in an equipe, and have to go to the hospital at dawn to help get the patients up. It is trite yet true, Gabriel, that things are so much better if one is helping others.

Friday was the day of departure. A profoundly depressing experience but I overcame it by sitting in part of the Grotto sketching, attempting to capture the rocks. The Gospel reading was about Martha and Mary. Actually a contemplation! I had just the day before for two and a half hours waiting in the queues for the baths. This is seemingly an enormous waste of time but did it matter? No, what else was I going to do? And there is that wonderful, refreshing moment as with a prayer one is plunged into the holy water. It is worth it, Gabriel, just to sit for two hours doing nothing.