'You must try my home-made brandy,' said Jane, a diminutive 90-year-old with a wild nest of grey hair, 'it's a local speciality.' Before I could protest, she had sent her daughter to fetch the bottle. It was 9.30am.
I was in a small village outside Alençon in Normandy and Jane had invited me into her garden after seeing me walk past with my rucksack. She'd done a lot of travelling, she said, and was curious to know where I was heading.
The bottle was placed before me, along with a small glass, and as I sipped at the fiery amber liquid under the mischievous eye of my host, I explained that I was starting out on a 2,000-kilometre walk from Calais to Cadiz.
Laurie Lee was to blame. I had read his book As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning while travelling in South America early last year. It's an enchanting account of the journey he made in the 1930s when, as a curious young man, he'd left his Cotswold village to find out what else the world had to offer. Lee walked to the coast, took a boat to Vigo on the north-west coast of Spain and walked through the heart of the country to the south coast, relying on the hospitality of locals.
What struck me about his trip was its freedom and simplicity. There I was with my laptop, mobile phone, credit cards, timetables. It seemed I had made every effort to take my life in England with me, and suddenly it felt very cumbersome. I resolved to make a similar journey to Lee's; I would leave the trappings of the 21st century behind me, live in the open air and rely on the kindness of strangers.
I downed my third glass of brandy, thanked Jane for her hospitality and set off on the road again with an unsteady spring in my step.
I'd been to France numerous times before but this felt different. At the beginning of April I'd walked off the ferry in Calais in a good pair of boots, carrying a small tent, a sleeping bag, some clothes and a few other essentials. My only luxury was a small gas burner for brewing coffee. Lee paid his way busking with a violin, but since I lacked such skills I had to make do with good old-fashioned traveller's cheques and a planned budget of €5 a day.
Early on in the trip, I was so anxious about being stranded that I pitched my tent at half past four in what was effectively a large bush by the side of the road and shared the space with a small family of very active and disgruntled rats. But I quickly learnt to find better places to sleep.
Northern France in April is generally cold and wet. During a particularly bad downpour at the end of my first week, I stumbled gratefully into a small barn outside a village called Hubersent.
As I sat on the warm bales of hay trying to dry off, the farmer appeared and looked me over. I apologised for being there and pointed at the rain outside. He shrugged nonchalantly.
'Where are you going?' he asked. When I told him Spain he smiled as if we were sharing a joke and, after as much conversation as my French allowed, told me I was welcome to stay there for the night.
Half an hour later his wife and two young children trooped in to see the Englishman who was walking to Spain. They brought soup, lasagne, apples and water.
Next day I walked on to a small town called Chateau Gontier, on the river Mayenne. For several days I followed this river south as it wound its way through green trees, passing grand old houses looking out serenely over the water. I camped next to the river one night and was watching the water flow when an otter swam past, his big black eyes fixed on me.
I learnt to knock on doors for water. The first time I tried this I managed to choose a house where the woman who came to the gate had her leg in plaster and hobbled out on a pair of crutches to see what I wanted. Embarrassed, I asked if she could possibly fill my empty bottle. 'Water? Of course!' she said cheerfully.
A few times I was handed some fruit or bread to see me on my way, and one woman, after we had chatted and said goodbye, turned up five minutes later in her car to give me a hastily prepared packed lunch.
At first I thought this was beginner's luck, but as I made my way towards Les Sables d'Olonne on the Vendée coast, I found the same hospitality everywhere.
The further I got into my trip, the more natural my way of life became. I awoke to the dawn chorus and was often on the road before the sun had risen. I washed in rivers and streams, learnt to navigate and tell the time by the sun, and to pick out the different calls of birds - my favourite being the buzzard with its cat-like meow. By day I was surrounded by the steady drone of crickets, and at night I fell asleep to the sounds of animals emerging from their daytime sleep, and the soothing hoot of the owl.
France is such a vast, open space with so many copses, forests and areas of unused land that I rarely had a problem finding somewhere to camp.
Just outside Vaiges, as dusk was falling, I knocked at a farm to see whether I could camp on its land. The farmer, Andre, nodded enthusiastically and rather than send me to some far-away field, found a spot for me in the front garden, then invited me inside for a drink and a meal of bread and cold meats, omelette and salad, all washed down with local cider.
After Les Sables d'Olonne I walked the coast before heading inland towards Cognac. The weather improved as I moved south and summer arrived, the farmhouses giving way to châteaux. Instead of roads I walked along bright white chalk tracks through peaceful vineyards.
From Cognac it was south to Bordeaux and days spent walking the flat and monotonous pine forests of the Parc Naturel Régionel des Landes. Then I was at Orthez and the foot of the Pyrenees.
The Pyrenees are truly magnificent and worth every aching step. I started the ascent on a cool misty morning and reached the summit (a mere 1,057m) at midday. I found myself sandwiched between a beautiful clear blue sky above and a soft white carpet of cloud below, with distant mountain peaks jutting upwards around me.
Crossing the border was a moment of personal triumph - I had travelled through a whole country by foot, and now Spain lay sprawled out before me, scorched and dried by a relentlessly hot sun.
I had reached the halfway point of my journey. It had taken 11 weeks, and in that time I'd met many friendly people, seen many wonderful sights and fallen in step with the natural world. But best of all I had discovered that the spirit of Lee's journey was alive after all.