Dieppe is closed!

Dieppe is closed!

Came out of Boulogne Sunday morning and made our way nicely under sail towards Dieppe. Hermy sails very nicely and we made good progress but gradually reefed down as the wind grew and the chop increased. Not forecast and wife not happy. Glad to get in to Dieppe harbour which was welcomingly sheltered. Popped into a nice visitors berth and all was well.

Practiced my French on the bemused marina lady whose English was on a par with John Gielgud's.

At this point I proved that banging your head was not just an onboard ritual, when I bent down to place marina stuff in my rucksack and on coming back up hit the underside of the counter with rivet tearing force and an enormous resonating crack. The poor lady didn't know whether to apologise, call an ambulance or check the counter for damage. She quickly took her lead from my caring wife who was doubled up with laughter. I continued on as if it was just a normal daily occurrence which I am beginning to think it is.

We felt there were similarities with Dieppe and Dover although no Witherspoon's evident but I did have wait to make a deposit at the bins whilst a man went through what was in there, he may not go back if he started to look in mine!

It has a castle on a hill, and I am sure I saw this woman in Dover too.

The castle also had a museum which was highly advertised and we tried to look at it. Day one it was closed because it was lunch two hours, day two it was closed because it was Tuesday, and on the third attempt it was closed because there was a strike, it's a bit like working with the Met.

Nice views of where the Canadians attacked in 1942 op Jubilee.

Dieppe was not enhanced with the gloomy weather and to cheer ourselves up we caught a bus to St Valery en Caux, a port we were going to leapfrog so we thought it would be nice to have a look. Bus turned up and a nice lady drove us for an hour for 2 Euros each.

St Valery En Caux harbour, lovely if you could airbrush out the Winibagos.

All was well here until we decided to go back and wait for the bus for half an hour before we realised we were looking at the July/ August timetable and not the "Dieppe is closed" timetable, still despite the strikes they were running.

Had lunch and got completely soaked before catching the bus home.

As a trained observer I couldn't help thinking that the couple I held the Marina gate open for might be English. About thirty minutes later Dave from Morning Mist whom we had met at St Valerie Sur Somme came up to the boat and said I thought that was you! We were invited for drinks at 5:30.

At SV En Caux we decided to begin our lists of good French things and bad French things. Number one good French thing are the police sirens. They are the old fashioned ee  orr  ee orr type which conveys perfectly to the public that there is a problem, likely to be a load of rubbish but we had better get there and make sure. Rather than the stupidly hysterical American type of wailing and whooping that startles the shit out of the public and conveys the message that the world is about to explode but 5 seconds later it stops and you draw up to a Witherspoons where two drunks are arguing over the next round.

Worst thing - no fat free milk and their coffee is crap.

Stayed two days longer than we wanted to because of the weather but the forcast was good for Friday 20th wave height .06 metre and 12 knot winds. Not true 2 metre waves and 20 knot winds with driving rain. Carol Kirkwood or Nina Ridge wouldn't do this to us.

Caroline sunbathing.

Fecamp looks really nice.