DAY 5 (7th July)

The weather doesn’t know whether to shit or cough. Today we’ve had heavy rain, bright sunshine and drizzle. As I write this in Chateau de Martragny, an impressive thunderstorm has just arrived. The journey from Les Eaux was uneventful: an earlyish rise; breakfast of croissants, baguette and comfychair; and a leisurely packup allowed departure before 10 o’c and a prompt arrival at Martragny. Given the dodgy weather, we set out for the nearest of the three daily markets but (if it was ever there) it had given up before our arrival at Asnelles which was greeted by heavy rain. We continued to Arromanches (site of the Mulberry Harbours that my father worked on) which boasts an extensive D-Day display, some leftover D-Day hardware in the sea, a large party of English schoolchildren and not much else, except the church (rebuilt in C19), which has some relatively recent stained glass, which obliquely depicts WW2.

Eschewing a bar in the town, we headed towards Bayeux, in search of a supermarket for tonight’s salmon and (after some supermarket- and soul-searching) a pack of Hollandaise sauce. On the way to the Intermarche, we noticed an impressive-looking church not far off our route and tried to locate it on the way back. Taking (what seemed like) the appropriate turn, we never saw it again and may try again tomorrow on the way back from Bayeux itself.

Back for a bier, a read, then salmon, hollandaise and a stirfry. We watched two episodes of Frasier on the DVD player, which has performed excellently – opting for the 9” screen rather than a 7” was definitely a good plan. We brought Leap of Faith (not yet played), Frasier, Outnumbered and Due South.

One entertainment failure has been the lack of all-night radio – my normal response to sleep failure is BBC Radio 7 (now rebranded as 4extra) on a pillow speaker. We failed completely to provide for radio entertainment and information although the car will supply a noisy 198 long wave. Tonight I might hook up my ipod to the Dab radio and listen to my current story,  Reginald Hill’s Stranger House.

Tomorrow, scrambled eggs for breakfast then the tapestry and back for butter chicken from a Patak bottle.

The original plan had been to camp again for one night at Rookesbury when we return to Blighty, but if the weather remains dodgy, we’ll head straight back for London: no point in spending a soggy night in a field with no awning as we couldn’t be arsed to raise it for a one night stop.

 

The talk for next summer is of a long ferry down to Spain. We did that years ago and cut straight across to France on the way to Rennes-le-Chateau and the Mediterranean,  but this time a tour of Spain may be the plan.