Home, briefly

Not the greatest night's sleep, as we so often find in hotels.  No complaint about the Relays du Château itself: it was clean, comfortable and quiet, the bed was comfortable and the linen was generous and of good quality.  The problem was rather the pizzas we'd eaten: they lay like lumps of lead in the innards.  So the bistro will not appear on our list of bonnes adresses.  The baker's shop next to the hotel provided good pains aux raisins, though. We had brought tea and leftovers of milk and OJ, so we had unofficial room service breakfast as usual (I'd read poor reviews of the hotel's limited and expensive breakfasts).

We'd worked out a reasonably direct route to Rouen from Rambouillet, but as usual were foiled by roadworks, and got pretty spectacularly lost.  Dotty was no help: she's obviously on the payroll of the oil and motorway companies, and seemed constantly to want to route us out of our way to the A13 at Mantes-la-Jolie (which, of course, is anything but).  We eventually found our way to Pacy-sur-Eure, and thence to a shorter stretch of the A13.  Very pleasant, rolling countryside, though, and at its best in the morning sunshine.

Unlike Tuesday's refuelling experience in the Orléans suburbs, refuelling in Dieppe was painless: the Auchan was on our route.  (Orléans had involved a bit of a detour, and further complication when I tried to fill at an HGV pump, where the nozzle was too big for the 'ole.  I suppose the HGV pumps have to deliver far faster to handle the huge volumes involved.)

We were rather early arriving in Dieppe, so loaded in the first batches.  We now learn that the MV Seven Sisters works like many a redundancy scheme: last in, first out; and the converse, alas.  At Newhaven, what's more, they disembark foot passengers first, and the approach to the task is disorganised, so the hanging around felt interminable.  Interesting to watch the various ramps being lowered, though.  Just near where we were parked, the windscreen of a big truck had been edged up to the railings at the end of our deck.  We wondered whether the driver was going to have to back out, or whether our deck, once emptied, would be hauled up.  Neither: the answer emerged as the lorry started slowly to sink out of view, not unlike the coffin at certain crematoria.  Once the ramp was clear of lorries, about six 1920s racing cars growled into life and started down the ramp, the driver of one of them looking rather scared as he yanked vigorously on the outside brake lever. 

Newhaven beach and Beachy Head

Once we were off, through passport checks and on the road, the return home wasn't bad, since we were going against the evening flow.  We had fine weather for the drive, which was welcome.  It has since degraded to heavy rain and some thunder, and this is forecast to continue so for 48 hours.  Augurs ill for further travels.