Dieppe

Leaving Saint-Valery is almost as big a challenge as getting in, You leave the marina at HW-1.5 and you're pushing a pretty large amount of water which wants to come into the Somme, so it's slow. When you get out the tide is just starting to turn south, so the prospect of heading north to Boulogne was slightly discouraging. We decided to head south to Dieppe for a night.

Dieppe is the nicest of the Channel ferry ports as was, in my opinion.No doubt it has a modern bit somewhere but the marina is right in the old town and only a few hundred metres from the beach. We have been there two or three times and always enjoyed it. The trouble from Sam's point of view is the enormous tidal range, up to 10 metres at springs, which means he can only really get off the boat within an hour or so of high tide and back no more than two or three hours after.

I had only planned to stay one night but Sunday's winds, although southerly, were forecast to gust up to F5 or more in the morning and it might have been a bit scary for the crew. They mutinied and insisted on staying an extra night. Oh well. Such a shame we were there on a Sunday when the branch of Bijou Brigitte, my favourite jewellery shop, was firmly closed. The knife shop, which Guy and Ben used to love, was open though... as was the bar when Guy had his first vast Hoegaarden and felt rather ill afterwards.

The Dieppe knife shop

Guy's bar

Kalessin at the bottom of a deep hole in Dieppe. Note the slats on the ramp, which are great for stopping you slipping as you go down, but a pain to get a wheelchair over.

This was a good spot to make the most of the new wheelchair with mountain bike tyres, which has already suffered one puncture (fortunately at the Great Barton stroke club where the members got together to repair it without my help), despite the assurances of the manufacturer. The chair is also very wide (Sam's bottom is spreading slightly after seven years of sitting on it almost all the time), so it's a nuisance to squeeze through doorways. However if you are presented with a ramp with little bumps on it, the new tyres are indispensable. Generally we try to ensure that Sam faces uphill so that he doesn't fall out of the chair, but sometimes backwards is better whatever the slope, to make the most of the big wheels. With a rope around the frame of the wheelchair, two people pulling the rope (or hanging back on it as we go down) and two more on the wheelchair handles, we can manage moderately steep slopes.

We thought we might get the free electric bus, but managed to miss it by being at the wrong bus stop, so we went for a walk instead. Just as well, as Bill and Anita from Meltemi reported it was rather a dull shuttle to the station and not a tourist bus at all in the usual sense. Sam and I had a pleasant walk up the Grand Rue and back along the beach promenade. When we stopped for a coffee at a beachfront cafe it rained, although fortunately only for half an hour or so. We were very impressed that they put a ramp in place so we could get Sam inside, shoehorned him into the best table in the tiny cafe, and they even had an almost accessible loo. Sam celebrated by eating pancakes with honey.

I walked past here just after the crew had persuaded me to stay an extra night. Can't argue with the sentiment...