Friday 30 November – Drive, Drive, Drive!

Where’s Bertie? To his great surprise, he’s not at a waterside Aire on the Begium/France border, he’s on our driveway at home.
Weather: Mixed, but then we did cover quite some miles.

At about 9 o’clock yesterday (Friday) morning Mick decided that he needed some urgent medical attention and, given the options of finding a suitable facility and dealing with a possible language barrier in France or Belgium, or returning home, he opted for the latter. In double quick time we were packed away, I’d modified our Eurotunnel booking and we were on the road.

The use of toll roads (a very great rarity for us) got us to Calais swiftly enough to get us onto a shuttle a little over an hour before the one I’d booked just two hours before (and with 14 minutes to wait before being called to board, just enough time to make a couple of travel mugs of tea before I had to isolate the gas tanks) and we were back in the UK by 11.30am (local time).

The M20 is currently subject to road works for almost its entire length and the M25 was exactly as one would expect the M25 to be on a Friday afternoon, which delayed us enough to put us in heavy traffic later on too.

We did, however, make it to the doctors’ surgery just before they closed. A couple of tests were performed then the next news we got was that an ambulance was on its way. The good news is that after a night in hospital and many tests and opinions, he got released today and he’s fine.  

So, the final day of our trip came sooner than expected, was a rather long one*, and contained the sort of ‘excitement’ that we can all do without!


I made productive use of the time spent hanging around in the hospital, but I'm really not sure I like the colour scheme

^{(*The other negative of the Aire at Grenay is the cockerel that lives next door and thinks that 3.33am is an acceptable time of day to start crowing.)}

 

Thursday 29 November - Grenay

Where's Bertie? Tonight Bertie has found himself quite a considerable distance from where he expected to be! He's in an Aire in the town of Grenay. It's free to stay here with (theoretically) free electricity, water and wifi (exact location: 50.44834, 2.73848).
Weather: Showers, some heavy, but with some decent dry spells this afternoon. Gusty wind.

Today's plan was to visit the town of Montreuil, as recommended by Martin earlier in the summer. Accordingly, we set off from Le Tréport (past the dismantling of the latest fuel tax protest in the town) and headed generally northwards, with the SatNav showing a total journey distance of 63km.

All went well until St Valery sur Somme, where a road closure necessitated a significant deviation inland - so significant that after half an hour of driving we now found ourselves with 65km still to go. And, if we were having to go so far inland (to Abbeville, which we could have reached far more directly from Le Treport, if we'd known about the closure), it didn't really make sense to head back out towards the coast. A replan was needed, and you'd not believe how far we had to drive before we found somewhere we could pull in to do that.

Having examined the options (the favourite of which ceased to hold that position when I discovered it had closed permanently just two weeks ago), we were lured to Grenay. A free Aire, with free services, including electricity and wifi, and with overwhelmingly positive reviews? Sounded good, although I was half expecting it to be full (there being only 3 spaces) of vans who had taken root.

There was one space available when arrived (and I suspect that at least one of the other two vans here is in residence, abusing the town's generosity in providing those free services), but we soon found that the only remaining electric point was out of order and that the wifi is only available for half an hour per registration.

A well-presented Aire, with parkland adjacent, which has been well tended by a whole team of high-viz clad workers this afternoon, including a thorough scrubbing of the service point.

What there also doesn't seem to be in the immediate vicinity is anything of interest. Admittedly, we didn't wander very far (not the best weather for it today), but we failed to find anything* other than residentail streets, industrial areas and a huge set of disused railway sidings - all with a general air of shabbiness. I think we have been sold a dud-un and will be moving on again tomorrow.

Today was, incidentally, by far our longest day of driving since the beginning of the trip, at around 150km. Being all on little roads, it felt much longer than that!

^{(*I suppose we did find a rather fine boulangerie/patisserie, where against all reasonableness on such a day of inactivity, we procured two cakes to (hopefully!) make up for the disappointing ones we had yesterday.)}

Thoughts about Water

MeanQueen left a comment about water on my last post, so I thought I would pen a few words on the subject.

Our water carrying capacity in Bertie consists of:
- A 120 litre on-board tank. We use this water for washing ourselves, the dishes, the occasional bit of laundry and for cooking;
- Four 5-litre containers, used for drinking water (which we obtain from the same taps used to fill the tank - in Bertie there's no good reason for us not to drink straight from the tank, but we don't);
- 2.5 litres worth of vacuum flasks, mainly used when we have electricity, saving us time and gas for hot drinks later in the day. Very occasionally they also get used for spare drinking water (i.e. cold water) capacity.
- 3 small drinking water bottles (2 litres total) that live in the cab area (they're all 'single use' bottles, one of which has been in service since 2012 and the other two since February 2017 - I do clean them every now and then!).

We almost never completely fill Bertie's water tank, as we seldom think we will get through that much water before we find a tap to fill it again. Usually we top it up to between 50 & 75%. That will last us at least a week (our record to date was 12 days on 75%, but we didn't run out even then). You may deduce from this that we don't wash very often and don't use much water when we do! I've also become an expert at washing dishes in a very small quantity of water.

We generally get through 4-5 litres of drinking water per day, so need to find a tap every 4 to 6 days for this purpose.

In all of the places we've visited in western Europe to date (with the notable exception of the UK), finding water is pretty easy, with motorhome service points and/or public taps being plentiful, although one does need to be aware that in Northern France in winter, the water at many motorhome service points get turned off. Our downfall is thus not usually the lack of a water point, but the lack of planning (or of preparedness to pay for water when we know it can be got for free elsewhere). On the 24 nights of this trip to date, I think that we have had access to water (sometimes free, often for an extra fee) every single night. The fault this week was ours, in that: a) we hadn't topped up the tank for a week; b) we didn't top it up when we left Le Treport the first time, because we weren't empty and knew water was included in the price at our next stop (Eu); and c) our hose connector collection is a bit lacking, which stopped us from using the water point at Eu.

The UK is a different matter and hunting down taps (or sometimes suitable streams) for drinking water can take a bit of effort. As I won't fill Bertie's tank from a public source that is not specifically provided for such a purpose (i.e. I'm not prepared to run a hose from some public toilets or a graveyard to his tank), his tank only gets filled on campsites. There have thus been a few times in the UK when we have found ourselves buying the cheapest supermarket bottled water either to decant into our drinking containers or, on at least one occasion, to pour into Bertie's tank so we could have a shower. Using, for example, Asda's 17p/2 litre bottles, it's not an outrageously expensive way of throwing a few litres in the tank, even if it's not an environmentally friendly way of getting water.

Wednesday 28 November - Eu and Le Tréport

Where's Bertie? He's back at the Aire in Le Tréport.
Weather: Morning showery (some prolonged and heavy), afternoon mainly dry. A high of 13 degrees.

The rain was hammering down as we readied ourselves for a look around Eu this morning. Earlier in this trip we would have stayed another night at the Aire and deferred our sight-seeing until it was a bit drier, but we're now running out of time, and having taken the trouble to go to Eu, we were jolly well going to see it.

Happily our waterproofs did their job to perfection: the rain stopped as we stepped out of Bertie and didn't start again until we were back.

Our verdict on Eu is that it's an interesting place to stroll around for an hour or two, with the first striking landmark when approaching from the direction of the Aire being the huge church:

It's dedicated to an Archbishop of Dublin, Laurence O'Toole. William the Conquerer married his cousin Mathilda there, you know.

There's also a chateau, in front of which a Christmas market is just being set up, looking like the same set of 'garden sheds' and marquees as we saw at Mers-les-Bains last weekend:

The back of the chateau, taken from the end of its garden, thus avoiding the clutter of the Christmas market at the front.

And generally there are just a lot of narrow streets lined with old houses:

Much wonkiness in the old timber framed buildings.

The one disappointment was our failure to buy cakes, due to one patisserie not having the best examples of the particular ones we wanted, and the other being closed. We didn't feel inclined to walk all the way back over to the other side of town to one of the outlets there.

Back at Bertie we weighed up the options as to where to go next. We already knew our next destination, but we also had to take into account The Water Issue. That is, we hadn't filled up when we left Le Tréport yesterday, as we knew water was included in the price of the Aire at Eu - but then we found we were unable to access it due to not having the right connector(/the absence of a sensible tap). There's a danger, being the end of November, that the supply will be turned off at our next stop, and we have no firm plan as to what we're doing the next night, so the easiest option seemed to be to backtrack the 4km to Le Tréport, and once here we thought we may as well stay the night.

Predictably (givng the morning's failure), this afternoon's objective was cake. Alas, we found the patisserie closed (their non-stop hours being modified by a note taped to the window saying they would re-open at 3pm) and it being about a mile each way from where Bertie is parked, we filled the waiting time by some semi-aimless wandering. That led us to discover things we had previously missed, like some information signs about historical points of interest, and a bit of art work:



The most surprising incident of the day was the sighting, at close quarters of three coypu (thanks to Mick for recognising what they were). On the body of water opposite the Aire lives a colony of ducks. They sit there all quiet and serene, until the moment they see a person passing by, whereupon they set up a frenzy of quacking, and make their way at full speed over to the slip way. They are obviously used to being fed (every time we've been on the road outside, we've walked over to the far pavement just to amuse ourselves with their Pavlovian reaction). As we passed for the final time today, their quacking had (to their little minds) paid off, and someone was there doling out bread, which had attracted not just the birds but also the coypu. The ducks got in the way, so the only snap I managed to get was at a distance, on full zoom:

There is a coypu in this snap, honest.



And after all that, they turned out to be rather disappointing.

Tuesday 27 November - Eu

Where's Bertie? He's sitting on his lonesome in an Aire in the town of Eu, which sits about 3km inland from Le Tréport. It costs €10 to stay here including electricity and water*. (Exact location: 50.05288, 1.42376)
Weather: Gloriously sunny morning, rainy afternoon.

With hindsight, when we were surprised to see a clear blue sky this morning, we should have seized the opportunity to go for a walk. What we did instead was ready Bertie for a move.

Our new destination was only a handful of kilometres away, but it was broken up with two stops en-route. The first was at McDonalds, where we installed ourselves in their car park to avail ourselves of their (painfully slow) wifi. When it became apparent that our stay there was going to be more than five minutes, we felt bad about not giving them any custom, so Mick nipped in for a coffee. That backfired: it turns out that coffee is free before noon - and not just if you're making a food purchase. So, we then found ourselves not only squatting in their car park, using their wifi, but doing so whilst drinking free coffee.

As lunchtime came, the car park got busy, so we took ourselves off to Lidl (passing through a minor, but non-disruptive fuel protest on our way), then finally to this Aire, which is all shiny and new, having only opened 3 months ago.

The reason for coming here was that I ran through a bit of the town yesterday and it looked interesting enough to spend a day here. Our enthusiams for exploring was quashed, however, when rain started to fall immediately after lunch. Thus, it wasn't until the light was seeping out of the day (and the rain had let up a bit) that we took ourselves off for an initial glance at the place. No photos today - the light was too low - but we plan to have a better look in daylight tomorrow.

^{(*The price includes water if you happen to have a male-male hose connector in your armoury. We don't. It's gone onto the 'to buy' list.)}

Monday 26 November - Le Tréport

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Aire at Le Tréport.
Weather: Grey, damp and cool.

Contrarily, I have today done quite a bit and not a lot. That is to say that my day started with a 13.1-mile run, but other than that couple of hours, I've barely stirred out of doors.

It was grey and struggling to get light as I set out at half past eight, and grey and raining persistently when I swung past Bertie 45 minutes later. Knowing that my route would involve laps, Mick had anticipated my return and had my waterproof jacket out ready for me. Thus more suitably attired, off I went again.

A bit of a convoluted route, with three laps of the middle bit, although not all in the same direction.

As well as running three laps of the trails that follow the waterways surrounding Bertie (involving two descents of a steep and metal staircase and one ascent of a concrete staircase (after I realised there was an alternative to the bouncy metal one)), my route took me along the harbour and seafront. A couple of days ago I commented on the number of fishing boats in the harbour. This morning there were just three. I did, however, count 24 bobbing around not very far offshore:


Back at Bertie, I declared that there was no point in moving on. The greyness of the weather, combined with having had enough exercise to justify being lazy for the rest of the day, didn't make me feel inclined to go and explore anywhere new.

This afternoon, after being defeated by an absolute stinker of a crossword, it was with bad timing that we went out for a stroll, just as the rain, which had been largely absent for a few hours, returned. I still accompanied Mick for part of his Fitbit-appeasement outing, although not the entirety of it.

Incidentally, I noticed as I bought today's parking ticket that the two options are 'Min: 1 day, Max: 2 days'. It would thus appear that one is only supposed to stay here for two days. As no more than 15 of the 60 spaces have been taken at any point since we arrived, I don't think anyone is going to be bothered by our overstaying.

Sunday 25 November - Le Tréport

Where's Bertie? Still at the Aire at Le Tréport.
Weather: Grey but mainly dry.


One of the passenger pods on the funicular, of which I failed to give a comprehensible description yesterday.

From the upper station of the funicular railway, at the top of the white cliffs, there is a walking route that is particularly popular on a Sunday morning, and clockwise seemed to be the direction of choice ... for just about everyone except for us. Two enormous groups of ramblers were met and 'bonjoured' (the second group must have been more than 50 strong). I'm not sure what makes it so popular as, except for the few hundred metres along the top of the cliffs, it didn't score highly on my 'interesting walk' scale.

I took myself off for another wander this afternoon, which turned out to be a little longer than expected (mainly because, on a whim, I deviated from where I intended to go, so as to recce a potential running route). It also involved an incident of trying to return a football to a nearby Sunday-league-esque match and proving, in front of an audience, that I don't even have the ability to make contact between foot and ball. I ended up leaving the ball on the path in the hope that someone with better skills would do the job.

Arriving back at Bertie, it was to the news that the police had just been around to check parking tickets. Of course, we didn't have a ticket, believing the whole payment system to be out of order. Having been put right on that front, off Mick toddled to the machine, in the company of another chap who had made the same mistake (being Sunday afternoon, a number of other vans had got away with it, having left earlier).

The first chap succeeded in getting a ticket, but having selected the relevant option and put his card into the slot, the machine failed to give Mick his slip of paper. He stood wondering what to do for a few moments, not knowing whether the payment had gone through or whether he should start over, when the first chap returned, said they were leaving and kindly handed over the ticket he had just bought - valid until tomorrow afternoon. It'll take a few days of waiting for the transaction to turn up (or not) on the credit card bill before we find out whether we did in fact pay for our ticket, or if we've just effectively stolen another night here.

Saturday 24 November - Le Tréport

Where's Bertie? He's still exactly where he was last night, at the Aire at Le Tréport.
Weather: Wet overnight and until late morning, then a dry but dull afternoon. Temperature just hit double figures today.

I left Mick in bed when I went out for a run this morning. That's not unusual, but then I usually go out quite early. Today, I waited for the rain to slow to a light spit, and thus didn't get out the door until quarter to eleven.

Five minutes or so later, as I trotted along the harbour at Le Tréport (a busy place, even on this damp morning, with the seafood vendors doing a good trade) I decided that I like Le Tréport and Mers-les-Bains*. I think the main reason is because it feels so familiar - so like any number of British seaside resorts.


Obligatory shop-name pun

I returned to Bertie to find that the electricity had gone off in the Aire. To my (British) mind, we're staying here for free, with free electricity, so we couldn't really complain about it no longer being available. To our French neighbours, this was not acceptable. A phone call was made (on a Saturday morning, note) and within fifteen minutes a man in a council van had appeared and power was restored.

As Mick had missed out on my morning jaunt into Le Tréport, that's where we headed after lunch, exploring more than just the harbour area that I'd seen earlier.


Passing at a slower pace, I noticed how many fishing boats were moored in the harbour. Unfortunately this snap doesn't really convey the numbers; there were a lot!

After walking to the beacon at the end of the harbour wall and admiring the view over to Mers-les-Bains and 'Constitution Hill' atop which we stood yesterday...

...a corner was turned and along the top of the shingle beach, below some impressive white cliffs, we went:


We might then have simply turned and walked back along the promenade, but a 'passenger pod' was just descending the funicular railway. This railway has four tracks, each carrying one 10-person pod, (although if full it'd be a bit too cosy), each pod being a vertical cross section of a cylinder, and made of glass. Being not like any funicular I've been on (moreover, being free), I persuaded Mick that we needed to travel on it, up to the top of the cliffs.

That afforded us some even better views:


If you know where to look and zoom in on the full-sized version of this second snap, Bertie is visible.

After bimbling around on the coast path for a short distance, we opted to walk, rather than be transported, back down.

The side effect of lazying around for so much of the morning was that by the time we had done that, the still-overcast sky was turning various hues of 'sunset' and soon the light began to fade.

^{(*As I mentioned the other day, these two towns sit right next to each other. Whilst they are to the eye one conurbation, they sit in different Departments, with Le Tréport being in Normandy and Mers-les-Bains being in Picardie.)}

Friday 23 November - Le Tréport

Where's Bertie? He's in an Aire at Le Tréport, less than 800m as the crow flies from where he was last night. It should cost €10 per night to stay here, including electricity and water. (Exact location: 50.05928, 1.39035)
Weather: To our surprise, glorious sunshine all day and a little warmer than the rest of the week.

Until 12.30 today we were all a-dither as to whether to stay another night in Mers-les-Bains, or to move on. Having gone back and forth on the options and the pros and cons, the final decision was deferred until we had been for a walk up 'Constitution Hill' (as I'm dubbing the hill at the NE end of the promenade). I'd downloaded a circular route, which we followed until it turned inland, whereupon we decided that the rest of it looked like it was going to take us for a tour around some nondescript farmland, and that an about-turn would be the more interesting option.


From the top of the initial pull up out of town, looking over the rooftops

A good sea view, ruined.

We passed by and over a few WWII gun emplacements and bunkers. This one was more decorative than most.

Back at Bertie, over elevenses, there was more consideration of our options. Save for one unknown, we would have stayed put for at least one more night. That unknown was related to the entry/exit barrier system. On arrival, you pay for your selected length of stay and the machine spits out various bits of paper, one of which gives an access code. You enter that into a keypad, and in you go - or at the end of your stay, out you come. What we didn't know was whether the system can cope with an extension being made simply by paying for another day. Is it clever enough to require you to enter the Aire before you can exit it (i.e. if we bought another ticket, but didn't use the entry code, could we then use that code to exit)? If you can exit without entering (bearing in mind that entering is not just a matter of keying in a number and getting the barrier to open, due to pressure sensors embedded in the ground) then their system is flawed, as one could stay for a week on a one-day ticket, then buy another one-day ticket to leave. If you can't exit without entering, then the system is also flawed, because it's not unusual for people to want to extend their stay. Having witnessed someone fail to get the barrier to open for their exit yesterday didn't help our uncertainty.

In the end we decided to err on the side of caution: we would drive out, turn around, pay for another day and drive back in again. The resolution lasted until we'd packed everything away ready for the exit/re-entry manoeuvre, whereupon I decided that as everything was now ready for travel, we may just as well go to the Aire at Le Tréport for a night or two, which is where we were coming next anyway.

That's currently looking like a good move. The Aire is much more pleasing to look at and it appears to be more popular (there are currently a dozen vans here, compared with three at the last place), and on arrival we found the entrance barrier open (possibly explaining the popularity!). There was a little dithering as to whether we should pay anyway (what if the barrier get fixed whilst we're here?!), but a nearby resident indicated we should just drive in so we did - as has every French van that has arrived since.


Whilst the Aire is much nicer to look at, it is in the industrial area of town, with factories adjacent.

The only notable afternoon activities have been the casting on of my next knitting endeavour, and a walk back over to Mers-les-Bains to take a look at the Christmas market, which opened at 3.30 this afternoon and runs all weekend (it's a traditional Christmas market, with lots of 'garden sheds' set up, which seems an awful lot of effort for a 3-day event). It was a little underwhelming half an hour after it opened, but I imagine that come evening it will be a lively place.

However, we don't want to be wandering around in the dark, not least because the shortest way from here to there involves a road slightly lacking in pavementage, and an underpass designed for small children:

Thursday 22 November - Mers-les-Bains

Where's Bertie? He's at an Aire on the edge of the seaside town of Mers-les-Bains. It costs €7.70 to stay here including electricity and waste. Water is available for an extra charge. (Exact location: 50.06151, 1.40162)
Weather: Grey with the cloud base sitting not far above us (indeed, we drove into it on the way here). Today's top temperature: 3 degrees.

A final run along the ex-railway line at Neufchâtel, a visit to the now-restocked Lidl, then a 40km journey northwards. All of that took us up to 1pm.

There's a whole selection of Aires in the neigbouring seaside towns of Le Tréport and Mers-les-Bains and slightly inland at Eu-le-Tréport, and we thought we would start with the cheapest one that has electricity* included in the price. That has brought us to a place that has a bit of an organised-wasteland look to it, situated in an industrial estate. Aesthetically, it's not the most appealing place we've ever stayed:

The view out of Bertie's windscreen is of a wall made of concrete panels, beyond which are industrial units. I'm sure it looks a little more appealing when it's busier in summer.

We're exactly a mile from the sea, so it was an easy enough walk down to the promenade this afternoon, past the location where (what looks like) a Christmas market is just being set up.



As we popped out onto the prom, I remarked on the similarity with Aberystwyth. Okay, so there are some quite noticeable differences too, but the row of tall terraces, the wide prom and the hill beyond very much put me in mind of Aber.

The buildings are a bit less uniform than we're used to seeing in British Victorian seaside resorts, although the history here is the same (along came the railway, along came holidaymakers and thus development):


A rich variety of styles and colour

<sup>(*The circuit breakers are marked as 4A - the lowest we've ever come across - but I've managed to run the kettle (marked as 1080W) without tripping it. Fortunately, our fan heater has a 750W setting, which doesn't chuck out an awful lot of heat, but it will still save us some use of the gas heating. I wonder how long it'll be before I forget to turn off the heater before turning on the kettle or hob?)

(Fuel tax protests update: There are still plenty of yellow vests on display on dashboards, but we didn't encounter any blockades today. From all the fire-blackened spots around the main roundabout at the edge of Mers-les-Bains, there was a substantial protest there last weekend.)</sup>

Wednesday 21 November - Neufchâtel-en-Bray

Where's Bertie? He's still exactly where he was yesterday, in the Aire at Neufchâtel.
Weather: A cold and murky start, but a gloriously sunny afternoon.

Two things have been achieved today: a run and some laundry.

Mick joined me for the first five miles along the disused railway line, which saw us run 2.5 miles in a southeasterly direction, before turning around and running back. It was a dry, but grey, day and the coldness of the air was again a bit too noticeable.

By the time Mick left me on the return (to go and buy some croissant, whilst I continued on past Bertie) I had decided that I wasn't going to run for 2.5 hours, per my original intention. That decision to cut short nearly got reversed, as heading NW I was so very comfortable. Then I had to turn again for the final leg back to Bertie and, my goodness, the comfort evapourated in an instant. Of course, by then I was fair glowing, which didn't sit happily with a Baltic easterly wind.

Coffee and croissant were waiting for me when I got back (he's a good chap, that Mick, you know) which were swiftly followed by lunch, during which time I multi-tasked and did laundry too. I had considered walking into town to the laundrette, but the saving would only have been 70c compared with using the facilities at the Aire, and the value of being able to use machines only 50 paces away from Bertie was worth far more. (Later I found laundry facilities in the car park of the nearest supermarket, which were cheaper still. Had I known about those, I would have deferred laundry until we left here, and we would have gone and parked next to them.)

By this time, the day had surprised us by becoming gloriously sunny, so whilst a few garments that I didn't want to subject to a commercial tumble drier fluttered on the washing line, we took ourselves off for another bit of a wander. Nothing exciting, unless browsing French sports shops and hypermarches is your thing!


The only photo I took today. All those yellow vests on dashboards - there's certainly support for the fuel protests, although there doesn't seem to be any new news about them today, so I suspect they've died down until le weekend.

Tuesday 20 November - Neufchâtel-en-Bray

Where's Bertie? To his surprise (and ours) he's back in the Aire at Neufchatel, where he spent a night the Thursday before last.
Weather: Overcast morning, snowy afternoon. Still bitingly cold.

Last night's parking spot was superb, in that the sea provided a perfect background noise, drowning out everything else (including the blustery wind) and lulling me to sleep nicely.

By contrast, today did not go according to plan, which has somewhat scuppered my vague intentions for the next week.

As we drove off this morning the rough intention was to go into Dieppe for some shopping, maybe stay for a few hours, or even overnight, then make our way slowly along the River Bray, stopping at three different Aires en-route - all of which was anticipated to take us around a week.

The one factor that we feared would impact us was the ongoing fuel protests, and it transpired that we weren't being pessimistic.

As we approached the first blockaded roundabout, we u-turned and sought an alternative route. That proved to be difficult so, after a stop to top up Bertie's diesel (the protests have expanded to blocking refineries, so this was a bit of insurance to make sure we have enough fuel to allow us to leave the country) we decided to re-approach the blockaded roundabout from a different direction.

The symbol of this protest is the 'yellow vest' - the high-viz vests that every motorist in France is required to carry by law. Protesters blocking the road are wearing them and supporters of the protests are displaying them on the right hand front corner of their dashboards. There is clearly a lot of support.

For fear of causing offence I didn't take any photos at the first roundabout, where fires were burning both on the island itself and in the middle of every approach road and where dozens and dozens of high-viz-clad protesters were standing in the road, manning the barriers being used to hold the traffic. We chatted to various of the protesters as they held us at three different points on the roundabout (I say 'chatted' - we conversed as best we could with my level of French).

The next roundabout had fewer protesters, but bigger fires. I snuck a photo of this one as we approached:

Bertie had to squeeze between the green lorry and the charred tree, over by the big fire

A lorry was being used to block our exit, but the protesters were directing motorists to mount the kerb onto the grass to bypass the lorry, which is what we found ourselves having to do too. That one struck us as a bizarre form of protest.

By this point we had decided to abandon all hopes of getting to a supermarket in Dieppe, which caused us a bit of a problem as, being a week since we last shopped, supplies were low enough to dictate that we really did need to restock. Thus, instead of spending a week travelling up the Bray, we came all the way to Neufchatel today - although not without one more protest encounter en-route. At a small roundabout in a small town the tell-tale fires were missing, but traffic was being held in its entirety for five minutes at a time before a few cars from each approach road were allowed through in turn. We were the best part of an hour there, shuffling forward a few car lengths at a time.

At that point we were picturing a whole day being spent on the road, to travel a total of 40km, but once we were finally through that place, it was plain sailing to Neufchatel, where Lidl was our first port of call. The huge hypermarche next door came next when we found Lidl looking like a plague of locusts had been through it. I guess Lidl depends on daily deliveries, which have probably been delayed by all the fuel protests.

It was whilst we were shopping that the snow started gently to fall and a couple of hours later it was still going. Very light and with no threat of settling, but added to the bitter windchill, I was somewhat unenthusiastic when we layered up to get a bit of exercise this afternoon. It wasn't so bad once we were moving, but I was still happy to be back in a warm Bertie.

Beyond thinking that we will stay here for a couple or three days (there's electricity and internet here - a bonus when it's hovering around freezing outside without a hint of sunshine), we need to come up with some new thoughts as to where we want to go next, taking into account the lack of Aires on the direct route to where we need to be in 2 weeks time.

^{(Incidentally, in amongst all of the protests we have seen not a single police person. An intentional decision on the basis that implementation of the law will cause an escalation to riots? Whilst the majority of the protests seem to be peaceful, as of last night there was a casualty list of 400 injured and 1 dead - from what I've read, all of them protesters hit by cars.)}

Monday 19 November - Pourville-sur-Mer

Where's Bertie? He's in an otherwise empty car park in the seaside town of Pourville-sur-Mer (exact location: 49.91705, 1.02940).
Weather: The sky clouded over before the sun was high enough to hit us this morning and it has been mainly cloudy ever since, although with some sunny intervals this afternoon. Cold, with an even colder easterly wind.

I was determined to run this morning, but not at my usual early hour. To allow a little heat to seep into the day, I left it until 10 before I set off. I don't think it made much of a difference: it was only 2 degrees at noon, and there's not a noticeable warmth between zero and two degrees, particularly with an easterly wind making things feel much colder.

It was an undulating route I took (unavoidable in that area, particularly when covering 8.5 miles in a single loop), and it went slightly awry when, even though I was looking at the map, I took a wrong turn at a roundabout. Because I'd made a mental note of my next turn, I didn't notice the error until I got to the sign for the next village, whereupon I recognised that it wasn't where I was supposed to be. Back to the roundabout I went, where I located the right road - one so tiny that I'd completely missed its presence on my first pass.

Having had the heating come on a couple of times through the night, and having turned it up higher first thing this morning, there was a whole tank full of hot water waiting for me when I got back to Bertie, so it would have been silly not to use it with a shower. Gosh, did I feel the cold afterwards, though?

Lunchtime was by then upon us, but we thought that could wait 45 minutes whilst we drove to Dieppe. We were about half way there when I started waivering as to our destination. The two Aires in Dieppe are €12, which would be fine if we were guaranteed electricity, but we knew that there are only a few electric points and that they are designated as being for two hours per van per day only (judging by the reviews, the reality is that whoever gets one, keeps it). By contrast, there are five car parks suitable for motorhomes in Pourville-sur-Mer, just a little way along the coast to the west, and they all have fairly good reviews.

It was in amongst this indecision that we ran into a fuel protest (the price of diesel has increased by 23% in the last 12 months, and when the government announced another increase in fuel duty to take effect in January, a series of blockades and protests was organised). After sitting with the engine off for a while, whilst horns tooted around us, we decided that, as we were in a place where we could turn around, and as there was an obvious alternative route we could take, that is what we would do. Some little roads duly brought us a slightly longer way around to the seaside, where we soon had Bertie settled into a parking slot.

Swaddling ourselves up in winter layers after lunch, a walk was had along the promenade.

Can you see the four people in the sea?


The same view as rendered by Monet in 1882.

It was walking along the sea road on the way back that we made a fortuitous find:

Dodgy photo taken later out of Bertie's window when we relocated ourselves to the other end of the promenade.

The one problem with coming here rather than going to the Aire in Dieppe was that we were down to our last couple of litres of drinking water. We've not come across a single public tap in the street on this trip to date (something that's pretty common in many places in France (and Spain)), but one finally appeared just when needed it most.

Our wanderings had also told us that one of the other car parks, at the other end of the sea front, was better than where we were initially parked, for being less slopey and further away from the road. So, that's where we are now sitting, as the light drains out of the day and the temperature starts to plummet again. Hopefully the proximity of the sea will keep it a little warmer here than it was higher up in the middle of the countryside last night.


Mick went for another little wander after we had relocated and came back with these. He's a star, isn't he?

Sunday 18 November - Gonzeville

Where's Bertie? He's in the car park of the Mairie in Gonzeville (exact location: 49.76590, 0.80723).
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine but cold.

I was woken by the wooshing of a flame igniting on a gas burner at ten past four this morning. "Why is the fridge making that much noise?" was my first thought before I woke up sufficiently to realise that it was the heating kicking in, as the temperature inside Bertie fell below 7 degrees.

It was many hours later when I spotted that the largest skylight was slightly open. Neither of us opened it yesterday, so it must have been that way since at least Friday and explains why the temperature dropped so much faster than normal when the sun left us last night.

Bertie was already in the sunshine as we wandered down to the Boulangerie before we left town, but cars parked in the shade had a thick layer of frost - an acceptable price to pay for such glorious blue skies.

With bread and croissants stowed*, we left town and made another of our ridiculously short journeys. Today we have travelled 6.2km north, ending up in a very quiet place called Gonzeville. I hesitate to call it even a hamlet, as detailed explorations have led us to conclude that it is a scattered community of houses. It does, however, have a Mairie (Mayor's office) and they have kindly dedicated part of their small car park to motorhomes.


If it wasn't for that informal 'Aire de Camping Cars' poster on the gatepost, I would not have believed that it was acceptable to park, never mind stay, here. The Mairie is behind us, in front of us is an historic timbered barn.

This is definitely not a 'come and spend money here' sort of a place, but a 'come and see our history' one. There is nothing to spend money on, but there is a 4km heritage trail with eleven information points, all of which are bi-lingual (French and English). Three other Seine-Maritime circular walking routes also pass by, should one want a longer outing.


More wonderful olde worlde buildings, all set in undulating farmland stretching out as far as the eye can see.

During this afternoon's walk we commented that, outside of the towns, almost all of the houses in this region seem to have some history behind them - whether brick, flint, timbered, thatched or combinations thereof, they all look at least a century old. Having agreed on this point, I said "Of course, having said that we'll go round the corner and there will be a modern box."...

...and, to our amusement, so there was.

In between this morning's and this afternoon's walks came lunch (as you would expect), an inspection of Bertie's main door, and a digging out of the tool kit.

I noticed at the beginning of this trip that, although the main door was pushing back into its 'stay open' clip easily enough, when pulled back out of the clip, the door would drop down a little. That didn't used to happen. Then a couple of days ago, I noticed that we could see daylight through the seal at the top of the door, which further confirmed the fact that the door had dropped. My initial half-hearted look at the hinges didn't reveal how that was possible, and it wasn't until this lunchtime that I looked properly and found the vertical adjustment. It turned out to be an easy two-minute job, and also suggested that we need to check the tightness of the screws every now and then.

^{(*In the case of the bread, 'stowed' = sitting on the double seat in the 'living room', because we don't have a food cupboard big enough for a long baguette and at least there, anchored by a cushion, it's not going to become a missile during transit.)}

Saturday 17 November - Doudeville

Where's Bertie? He's turned around twice today (daytime solar gain; night time levelness) but he's essentially still in the same place, in the Aire at Doudeville.
Weather: Gloriously sunny after the initial thin layer of cloud had burnt off. Cool.

The first mile of this morning's run was a bit 'urgh'. It was but 5 degrees out, the lie of the land had been continuously uphill and the wind was in our faces. The rest of the distance was just fine, and even the killer hill in the fourth mile was okay, although I'm glad it wasn't any longer.

Breakfasting in Bertie a while later, cars started joining us in the motorhome parking area. We knew it was market day and with the rest of the car park being full, we expected to find the town a bustling and lively place. Alas, no. We found a total of five market stalls (cheese, meat, veg, haberdashery and flowers) and only the cheese counter (which was sizeable) had many people around it. Even with a stop at a boulangerie for croissant, it was a short outing.

Thus, after lunch, we headed off again, this time for a walk. I'd come up with my own route, of a distance to suit the time of day (4 miles or so), but it turned out that we took in bits of both of the local circuits we'd noticed yesterday.


Lovely day for it!

Taking a wrong turn on the return leg (following my nose instead of looking at the map) was fortuitous, as I'd intended to take us past Chateau de Galle in the hope of getting a glimpse of it. If we hadn't taken that wrong turn, we would have passed behind the substantial walled estate and would have seen nothing, but with the wrong turn we went straight past the front gates:


Back at Bertie the sun was already dipping low and the temperature starting to collapse. The forecast tells me that we're now in for a period of easterly winds, bringing sunny days, but with cool temperatures by day and negative ones by night. Can't complain, though - it is the middle of November and I'd far rather have cold sunshine than cold rain.

Friday 16 November - Doudeville (a town full of dudes?)

Where's Bertie? He's sitting comfortably in an Aire in the town of Doudeville (exact location: 49.71995, 0.78776).
Weather: Foggy.

I won't utter a 'boo' or a 'hiss' at another day of fog, as it did lift slightly more today than yesterday and, even though there was not a hint of sunshine, it brightened enough for our solar panel to do its job and charge the things we wanted to get charged.

Before that happened, as we drove out of Étoutteville mid-morning, it was still sitting thick around us. Fortunately, our journey was not a long one - less than 7km from Aire to Aire. I had voiced concerns this morning that Doudeville wouldn't be for us, thinking that perhaps it was going to be too big a town for our liking, but as it was so close we thought we may as well have a look at the place before we rejected it. Immediate impressions were favourable - a spacious, level, motorhome parking area separated from the rest of the car park by hedges, next to some very grand houses, just on the edge of the town centre.

The town itself has the look of having been thrown together in a very piecemeal fashion over the centuries; there's a huge array of building styles on show, all mixed together.


The church is the only building of which I took a snap.

Our explorations took us out the other side of town, as the map suggested there might be an off-road location for a run over there (the uncertainty being that a track shown on Open Cycle Maps is not necessarily a right of way). It was a particularly successful recce as this post...

...gave me all the information I needed to locate and download some tourist leaflets about the two waymarked walking routes that come this way, as wikiloc.com had drawn a blank on this occasion.

There then proceeded a couple of hours of the afternoon during which, in hindsight, I shouldn't have bothered picking up my knitting to 'just do five more rounds'. I knitted, I unknitted ('tinked'), I knitted, I tinked, I knitted, I tinked, then finally, I managed to get it right (actually, I had it right the second time, but I didn't realise that until I tinked the third time). I'm hoping that the second sock of the pair will behave better.

I rounded my day off with a small look around our immediate area*, whilst Mick waited in for a phone call. The fog had lifted reasonably well by then, even if it was still a decidedly murky day. Based on the forecast I was being unduly optimistic that this was the end of the current weather pattern, but alas, as darkness fell so the fog descended again.

^{(*I did nip out once more. There's a supermarket about a minute's walk away and I nipped over there for two items needed to make tonight's tea. I came back with four items, only one of which was on my list. Doh!)}

Thursday 15 November - Êtoutteville

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Aire at Étouttville.
Weather: Fog

This is going to be a short post, but I'll probably still mange to pen more words than it deserves.

Waking to fog I deferred today's run until mid-morning to allow the sun time to burn through, but at 10.30 visibility was still bad enough to make running along little lanes unsafe (footnote 1). The run was deferred until mid-afternoon, as the Meteo-France App assured us that by then the sun would have broken through.

The sun never did win against the fog, but at just after 2pm we decided that it was clear enough to be safe, so out we trotted for a speed interval session. Our route (the local heritage trail, but omitting the two loops designed to take one past points of interest) wasn't entirely suited to the purpose, with some rough tracks and some slippery muddy sections, not to mention a few undulations, but I think the surroundings were probably reasonably pleasant ... if only we could have seen them.



Back in Bertie within the hour, we soon had our pyjamas back on. It wasn't a day for doing stuff or seeing things.

Otherwise, progress has been made on the sock I'm knitting, the daily crossword has been done and I've spent a few hours with Sherlock Holmes whilst Mick has been enjoying the company of Lieutenant Sharpe during a campaign in Oporto (footnote 2).

^{(1: Theoretically unsafe. Whilst we encountered cars at various crossroads, No a single vehicle passed us on any of the lanes we ran.
2: I had been listening to The Sign of Four as an audiobook. The complete Sherlock Holmes (some 75 hours or so of listening!) has been split by Audible across 6 downloads. I didn't expect any single book to be split across two downloads, so I only put the first on my phone. Fortunately, I also have the complete works on my Kindle, so when I abrupty met with the 'Audible hopes you have enjoyed this programme' mid-story, I was able to switch to the written word, which is what kept me entertained all morning. Mick's current reading is one of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series.)}

Wednesday 14 November - Yvetot and Étoutteville

Where's Bertie? He's in an Aire next to the sports grounds in the village of Étoutteville. It's free, except for water and electricity, which are available for a fee. (Exact location: 49.67538, 0.78994.)
Weather: A foggy start, burning off to give wall-to-wall sunshine.

It was late morning by the time the sun had won through the fog and we were ready to roll. The SatNav was promptly ignored, and back down to the village of Saint-Wandrille-Rançon we went, as I thought it might be nice to have a quick look at the Abbey there. Alas, a lack of suitable parking (or maybe a lack of trying very hard to find suitable parking) meant it wasn't to be, and onwards we drove to Yvetot, battling the SatNav which was quite determined that it wanted us off the direct main road, to use single track roads instead.

The first priority on arrival was lunch, before we took ourselves off for a walk around the town. There we found an impressive town hall...

The original, built in 1832, was pulled down and replaced, starting in 1912. The build was interrupted for the war and finally finished in 1922.

....and a church with the ugliest tower I've ever seen. From a distance, I thought it was a fire-fighter training tower:

The original church was destroyed at the start of the second world war. This replacement was completed in the 1950s. It's a pity it was locked, as I would have liked to have seen inside.

Unfortunately, those were the only two features of interest that we found, and we quickly decided that there would be no benefit to sticking around. So, pausing only for a loaf of bread from one of the many bakers (I wasn't sure if the Aire to which I was taking us next was in the middle of nowhere), we made our way back to Bertie and onwards we went.

Étoutteville is much more to our liking, but it is a bit of a strange place. The sports ground next to which we are parked is a reasonable size and has quite a few facilities (football pitch, tennis court, badminton/volleyball court, various outdoor gym equipment) and seems completely out of proportion with the village. The village itself is more new than old, and comes across as a suburb, yet it sits in open countryside, a good few kilometres away from Yvetot, the nearest town. Even more bizarre is that, unless we missed the one important street during our exploration of the place (there aren't many roads and we think we covered them all), there's not a single commerce here. No baker, no cafe/bar/restaurant. Why then has the town hall decided to invest in providing an Aire when there is no obvious reason, beyond an 8km heritage trail, to be trying to attract visitors? Our expectation in the provision of a dedicated motorhome parking area (moreover, one with facilities) is "We'll give you somewhere to park if you'll come and spend some money in our shops and restaurants, and/or admire our architecture and history". I hope that doesn't come across as ungrateful; I may be bamboozled as to the reason for the investment, but I'm very happy that the investment was made.

Also decidedly odd is the location of their electric car charging point:

Do you park perpendicular to the road, blocking the line being taken by people using the path? Do you park on the verge, running your cable across the line of the path as a trip hazard? The village pond lies the other side of the hedge, behind the charging point.

Tuesday 13 November - Jumièges and by Saint-Wandrille-Rançon

Where's Bertie? He's sitting on a farm a couple of kilometres away from, and up above, the settlement of Saint-Wandrille-Rançon. It costs €6 to stay here (incl water and waste and 50c tourist tax each). Electricity is an extra €2. A toilet and shower are available for a further charge. Exact location: 49.54069, 0.76702.
Weather: Sunshine, with just a few fluffy clouds coming and going through the afternoon.

I was up before daylight had arrived, stuffing a couple of bananas, and pouring a cup of tea, down my throat, in preparation for a long run.

I'd downloaded a route from wikiloc.com, which turned out not to be entirely feasible (without crawling under a fence and through a quarry, which is apparently where the person who recorded it had gone), so quite a few brief stops were had for route planning and navigation. More stops were had to quickly grab a few snaps of my surroundings:


A different lake from the ones visited over the last couple of days. The bird life in this snap is deceptive: those ducks are all decoys. I noticed when I spotted the first flock that they were all facing the same direction. It was only when I got to the second flock that I realised that none of them was moving.

The limestone cliffs alongside the river. I must have spent about an hour and a half of the outing on the tarmac of this particular road, during which time no more than half a dozen cars passed me.

I perhaps should have gone a little further than I did, but the last several miles were more of a struggle than I've encountered in any recent long run, so I was happy to call it a day as I hit the 15 mile mark.

Meanwhile, Mick had been out for a shorter run, involving three laps of some local roads, with the added excitement of rescuing a goat with its head stuck in a fence on his second lap (it had been stuck on the first lap, but he gave it an extra lap to be sure that it was stuck, which it turned out to be - quite decidedly so).

So tired was I upon returning to Bertie that sitting down for the rest of the day held great appeal. Thus, it took a bit of will power after food-shower-food, to walk up the road to the post office, so as to avail myself of their wifi for a bit of downloading, whilst Mick walked up to the boulangerie for some goodies:


Finally, at around 1pm, we left Jumièges and shortly afterwards the SatNav had one of its abberations ("you want to go somewhere that's 2km away on the main road? Let me take you a 4.5km route on some tiny roads to get there". Unfortunately, I spotted what it was doing just a few seconds too late to stop Mick from making the turn, although we did return to the main road as soon as we could). That first destination was a supermarket, as our food supplies had reached the point where, although we wouldn't have gone hungry, the combinations would have been ... interesting.

It was then only a few kilometres further to our night-stop, involving some tiny lanes that would have had us questioning their suitability for Bertie, if it hadn't been for the knowledge that the Aire at this farm has got lots of good reviews - more than would be likely if access was an issue.

The farm's young border collie met us upon arrival, repeatedly putting muddy pawprints all over my jeans. Harrumph. But, other than their dog needing a bit of training, it is nice spot...

The view through Bertie's windscreen this afternoon, shortly after the cows escape into the field in front of us and had to be chased back by the farmers.

...albeit sufficiently out of the way that we have modified out intention of spending 2 nights here to just the one.

Monday 12 November - Jumièges

Where's Bertie? He's still sitting in the same place, at the Aire at Jumièges.
Weather: Rainy morning, sunny intervals later.

With rain pattering down this morning, and the knowledge that it was forecast to brighten up later, there was no inclination to go anywhere or do anything this morning. Instead, heads were buried in e-books until we both knew the outcome of Sarjeant Shardlake's* latest adventure.

After a lunch that was only just late enough not to be called 'early', and with the weather now far more amenable to being outside, off we set on foot to spend a couple of hours seeing a little more of the surrounding area.

The route, downloaded from wikiloc.com, took us initially on tarmac (more ogling of houses) then down a little green lane between properties. As anyone can upload any route to wikiloc, there's always the danger one may be led into trespass, and this little green lane gave us a nagging doubt, until we finally spotted an old waymark on a pylon part way along it.

Look closely and there's a definite appearance of multiple additions and alterations to this church over the years.

About half way through the outing we reached the lake past which I had run (in the opposite direction) yesterday. From there the surroundings were new only to Mick, although there were some things that I had missed in my haste yesterday. In particular, we spent a good while hypothesising (with varying degrees of plausibility) over why there are huge fields of maize, as well as large commercial-looking orchards that have gone unharvested.


The lakes within this big meander in the river are the result of old gravel pits

Arriving back at the Aire it was with amusement that we saw the 'herding instinct' had struck again. I reckon you could fit well over 50 motorhomes on this patch of gravel, if they were neatly positioned. No prizes for guessing where the newly arrived German van had opted to park, when faced with a large empty area, occupied by just two vans...

^{(*Shardlake is the main character in a series of historical (mid 16th century) novels by CJ Sansom. In my opinion, they get better as they go along, with the exception of Lamentation, which didn't grab me (or Mick, or my Mother-in-Law) as much as the rest of the series.)}