July 23rd/24th 2010

We were scheduled to leave at 8 a.m. to catch the ferry from Newhaven at 6.30 p.m. So we left at 11 and again at 11.10 after we had remembered a couple of things. We were leaving from Tufnell Park in North London and headed out towards Sutton.
We were heading for Sutton because Bart had printed off a map from there to Brighton. Before we got there I decided to fall off. Bart had mounted the kerb and I attempted to follow. Oh, did I mention that we were cycling, with Paris as Bart’s destination and Rome as mine. My bike had been properly serviced with new tyres, chain etc. And a mirror specifically fitted on the left hand side for parts foreign. Anyway Bart had successfully mounted the kerb on to the pavement without stopping so I followed. The bike, however, had other ideas when I didn’t attack the kerb at right angles. The process of relocating myself on the pavement seemed to involve quite a few cuts and bruises plus breaking off the newly fitted mirror and breaking my watch. Oh well two less things to worry about – what is behind me and what time it is.
Upon asking some locals in Sutton where The Spoons was they denied the presence of such a fine establishment in Sutton. Hah, we soon found one – four pints of various liquids and two burgers for 11 quid was lunch. For the non-cognescenti, The Spoons are Witherspoons pubs. These are fine establishments that sell good beer and indifferent food cheap, open at 7 and are populated most commonly by non-Ferrari owners, even non-Mercedes owners, even non-VW owners, in fact non-owners; they are Bart’s natural habitat. When Bart started taking photos of my injuries the locals started taking an interest and estimated the time to cycle to Rome as five years. Bart produced a pair of cycling gloves given to me by Mother that may have reduced the damage to my hand in the aforementioned fall. He also produced the map but had to ask the locals the way to the start. They had clearly taken a view on our character and directed us to the next pub 300 metres up the road past the prison and the hospital. We left tem the broken watch as a souvenir.
Once we got off the main roads, it was good cycling – dry but not too sunny through the English countryside at its best when everything is green, the crops are growing well, the cows are content sitting around chewing the cud. The only problem was excessive stops to consult the map. At the next watering stop this duly got ripped up and, unencumbered by any such trivialities as maps or a compass, we proceeded much more quickly – shame about the direction. We were not bothered at all. Just two friends out for a nice bike ride; we knew that we had missed the ferry so who cares where we went as long as we enjoyed the country. We seemed to zigzag our way south, only occasionally along footpaths until we hit a sign saying Cycletrack to Brighton. The A23 is a large dual carriageway (four lane highway for the ignorant amongst us) with lots of traffic and most would not consider a cycletrack running alongside such a road as ideal. On this occasion I disagreed. We had already cycled about 90 kilometres during the day – and most of it outside London not flat – and the four hours kip meant that I was beginning to flag. Oh I forgot to mention why I was not up with the lark. Well actually I was, celebrating Mother’s birthday with only Rude Pete left for company by 6 in the morning. Rude Pete is well named. Some of you will recall a time before I became nice that I could come up with a turn of phrase that some might consider a little impertinent, well I have nothing on Rude Pete. He is the real deal, can be gratuitously offensive to all nice people and he is the reason why political correctness had to be invented - brilliant. The big road also meant avoiding the dreaded Ditchling Beacon. This is a steep climb up the South Downs that has featured in the Tour de France that Bart was looking forward to climbing – I was not, I had already had my one permitted get off and walk moment of the day. Bart found a reviving watering hole at just the right moment where he had a coffee and I had a couple of pints which dispelled my tiredness enough for me to wobble into Brighton at about 8.
We (well Bart) found a grotty B&B where the front door key didn’t work. Dinner in a Thai restaurant during which Bart established that we could catch a ferry at 9.30 in the morning. In fact the evening sailings were at 10.30 so we could have left that night; where Bart had got 6.30 from remains a mystery. I suspect it had been to make me get up early. Well, I had taught him.
Of course, the early sailing meant that we would have to leave the B&B at 7.30, too early for breakfast. I was still feeling a bit tired but we were now more evenly balanced as Bart had decided to spend the night listening to my gentle night noises rather than sleep. So Breakfast consisted of a cup of tea and my blood pressure pills, a bit different from the previous day when breakfast had been grapefruit juice and blood pressure pills. A gentle ride along the coast to Newhaven was OK. You tend to think that coast roads are flat – you would be mistaken. Consequently Bart kept leaving me behind but we arrived in plenty of time to join the queue to buy tickets to Dieppe. In front of us there were some loud people complaining that foot passenger tickets could not possibly be sold out even in school holidays. Upon getting to the front of the queue we found out that cyclists are a different category from foot passengers and they were – sold out. The choice seemed to be to sit in a pub all day and get the night sailing, or a train to Dover. We decided to wait and, sure enough, the nice lady let us on. I said that was because we had not been abusive until Bart pointed out that they had let the noisy people on as well.
The journey was uneventful if you discount the screaming brats, the irrational desire to join queues and our inability to find a table with a combined IQ of 270 odd. Why do people stand in a queue for twenty minutes when they can wander off for half an hour and come back to no queue?
The ferry journey is misnamed. It should be Newhaven to Nowhere or possibly “Newhaven to somewhere near Dieppe that you have to cycle up a bleeding steep hill and down again to get to Dieppe with ignorant British drivers passing three inches from your handlebar ends.” The French are much more considerate to cyclists than British car drivers. The Brits think “I pay my road taxes, these ****ing cyclists do not, they have no right to get in my way when I am rushing from the back of one queue to the back of another queue.” The French think “I used to cycle quite a lot when I was not an old fart, I will give the cyclists plenty of room”. It is quite normal for French drivers to wait three or four hundred metres behind you until there is a suitable moment to overtake. If they overtake you with cars coming the other way it is normal to put there outside wheels over the line down the middle of the road to squeeze the opposition car and give room to the cyclist; quite impressive when the overtaking vehicle has sixteen wheels.
Dieppe is quite a pleasant town and we began to feel like we were in France, lots of bars and restaurants with interesting menus and well turned out waitresses. Of course, it being 3.30, you could not get any of the food from the aforementioned well turned out waitresses, it being France.
The road out of Dieppe was going in roughly the right direction, i.e. south but was crowded. However, there were few bars so no cause to stop until a roundabout with a bar on it after about thirty kilometres(km). I was, surprise, surprise a little thirsty so we stopped for a beer. Bart left after ten minutes because he couldn’t stand the two blokes in the bar. Being a queen, it didn’t occur to him that we had to pay. Anyway we turned off the main road through the lovely village (with nice bars) and on our way up this lovely D road. You must bear in mind that Motorways (Highways to many of my foreign friends) are A roads in France, A roads are N roads, D roads are B roads and C roads are C roads. I trust that I have made that clear. We were confident that it was going somewhere but we didn’t really care, it was beautiful – smooth road, gentle ups and downs, lines of trees, properly shuttered houses, luuverly gardens and not many people. In fact it reminded me of what got me hooked on travelling almost forty years ago. Being a good parochial Derbyshire lad not from a wealthy family I was 20 before I ventured abroad and that was to bounce round France with a mate in a minivan. I wonder how many people under forty know what a minivan is? Or was? Anyway, it was the sight of long straight roads with avenues of trees down them and shuttered houses that made me think something along the lines of “I travelled 22 miles across the Channel and this is how different things are, what must it be like a few thousand miles away” I have never looked back since.
Actually the avenues seem to have disappeared. I am writing this a day later and we have seen a line of trees down one side of the road on quite a few occasions and we have been through a few woods but no avenues.
We are content ambling along but we are getting thirsty and find a shop in a village that sells cider (oh, I forgot to mention that we were in the apple and cider route – what a coincidence) and buy a bottle. This village is short of seats so we sit on the church steps to swig the bottle, In fact it is so good that we get another and drink that too. Only those of you with no taste and access to Bart could possibly want to see the film resulting from the pair of us entertaining each other. However, time is passing and we begin to think about food and bed. Not to drag the story out we get to a junction and decide that Buchy, at nine kilometres, is the place for us. However, the road did not look very interesting so we turned off quite quickly and did about 15K before deciding that we were getting nowhere. Bart, who speaks excellent foreign of varying dialects, including Frogish, accosts a local and is assured that Buchy, 4 Km away is the place to go with plenty of places to eat.
Obviously the first thing we do on arrival at this illustrious town is inspect the local pigeon loft. I realise that prioritization might vary but we were looking for somewhere to sleep that was cheap. Allow me to explain. These days I am not skint, I am not rich but I can afford the odd hotel room. Bart works for a charity so we were looking for a ditch to sleep in.
We cannot find a hotel of any sort in this fine village so I realise that we are truly ditch bound. We settle for eating Before ditch hunting. It being Saturday night Buchy was packed with busy restaurants. Well there was an Italian that was full. Could we come back in an hour? “Don’t know.” This confirmed Bart’s extremely dime view of the French. In the posh joint (i.e. the other restaurant in town that was open on a Saturday night) they let us in but hid us upstairs. We had the cheapest menu and only one bottle of wine for seventy euros but the food was damn good. On completion, it was out of town to look for a ditch.
By now it was almost fully dark but in a mere two or three kms I spotted what looked like an abandoned caravan – my eyesight is superb when I want something. When we checked it out we found that there was a small piece of nettle-infested grassland next to the caravan with an abandoned house as well. Clearly the place for us. The caravan was locked and Bart decided that the grass was thick enough to sleep on. We identified a couple of sleeping spots and retired to our house for late night snacks and wine. This, being Bart, meant him curling up in his sleeping bag whilst I drank the wine. And, of course he dozed off. This did leave a slight FCFCproblem. We had no tents, two survival blankets (big plastic bags), a sleeping bag (that Bart was curled up in) and a sleeping bag liner. So I retired with both survival blankets, the liner and Bart’s sweatshirt ( I only have T-shirts with me) to the outside world.

More next episode.