words by Williams

Friday June 16

Trying to work our way towards Dieppe without getting snagged by tolls and finding ourselves too close to Paris seems to be more tricky than it should be. I’ve started to doubt Maisie Waze a little, but today she seems to be behaving herself as she takes us the scenic route to the Flower Camping L’Ile les Trois Rois site at Les Andelys in Normandy.

We’re on another river - the Seine no less.

It’s another busy site, lots of Germans, Dutch and Brits alongside the French.

The site is tucked between the Seine and a small lake and we missed it coming in. Maisie called it correctly, but it didn’t look right, so we carried on through what looked like a fairly unpromising town.

We’re about two hours south of Dieppe here and Cal’s keen to see Monet’s garden at Giverny, which is about 20 kilometres south. We’re booked in for Monday. We’ll visit the garden then hop back on the bus for the trip north.

It’s a fairly quiet evening until Cal sees something splash into the lake in front of our pitch. We watch and there’s something rodentish swimming in the lake. It looks too big to be an otter, so is it a beaver?

Hard to tell from here but intriguing nonetheless.

Through the miracle of the Channel 4 app, I watch the England game in Malta on the iPad.

We’ve used so much data on this trip - most by way of Maisie Waze - but also spending time catching up with Facespace, posting blogs and general time-wasting. It would be interesting to see what the trip would have been like without the interweb.

We’d have been lost half the time, although Cal’s skills as co-pilot have been invaluable.

When the satnav’s guiding you, however, you tend to do less of that essential driving thing, reading road signs. And sometimes even when you read them, you don’t believe them because Maisie says different.

The signs should know, though, eh? After all, it’s what they’ve been put there for.

And talking of wildlife there’s an awful cacophony in the middle of the night. Ducks on the lake aren’t happy with something and are quacking up a storm. The something they’re not happy with is shouting back, cackling ferociously.

This loud and aggressive bickering goes on for half an hour. If it had been a row between people on the campsite, someone would have called the police.

Eventually order is restored. Wildlife, eh?

Saturday June 17

A walk along the river from the campsite gives you an entirely different view of Les Andelys, which is overlooked by a ruined chateau high on a cliff above the town which sits in a bow of the River Seine.

There are cruise ships here, too, heading into Paris, and one is moored alongside an open grassed area that seems to be hosting the pictures for a wedding earlier.

Away from the busy main road the town looks typically characterful and French.

I’m warm, but Cal’s melting, which is probably why she chooses lunch at a small restaurant promising shade and cool inside.

Cooler or not, it’s our first real disappointment food-wise on the whole trip. The whole menu seems to be an experiment in what can you make badly from bagged supermarket salad and sliced bread. Cal’s galette was dry and my croque monsieur was crepe.

Back at Betsy, Cal’s convinced we’re expecting nothing less than a typhoon overnight, so after cooking basically my Sully lunch on Betsy’s three-burner hob, we stow the table, chairs and mat and wind in the awning.

To be fair, it does rain quite heavily in the night but thankfully we’re not washed into the lake in the storm.

Sunday June 18

I think we’re starting to get something like end of trip blues. At least, I am. I’m waking up earlier and earlier in the morning, which is usually a sign that I’m stressing about something. I’m having dreams about driving on the wrong side of the road in which I’m confused about exactly which is the wrong side.

The first UK roundabout’s going to be interesting, for sure.

Cal cooks lunch of steak which we bought a couple of days ago on a supermarket booze run. She still thinks we don’t have enough, although there are three carrier bags full in the bus.

I realise again that I’ve neglected the blog, so I start a marathon writing session which seems to go on most of the day.

At about four in the afternoon we wander down to the campsite bar. Through the good offices of Professor Google and his maps, I realise it has a name - Le Chevalier d’Arkham. It’s actually written on a small chalkboard in the bar. I’ll have to Google the Chevalier himself at some point.

We’re a G and T in when the weather turns. It’s been muggy all day, but suddenly there’s a wind whipping horizontally across the terrace overturning chairs and tables.

There are spots of rain, too, so people move under cover of the large marquee on the patio.

But even the marquee’s no real shelter for the actual biblical monsoon punctuated by thunder and lightning that comes next.

The guy who runs the bar looks like he’s seen it all before. He’s plodding around outside, turning over tables and chairs to stop them blowing away.

He’s getting soaked. It’s making him grumpy, but in a resigned sort of way. It’s a messy job but someone has to do it - and he knows it’s him. And he does seem oddly oblivious to just how wet he’s getting.

And while he’s getting soaked, people are starting to leave the swimming pools next door to the bar - presumably because it’s raining. I mean, they’re already wet, aren’t they?

Meantime, people who aren’t already wet are becoming a little damp under the marquee, which by now has rivers of water running across the floor where it’s cascading off the roof.

Nothing to do but have another drink and sit it out. And have another drink.