Day 3, Mecredi, Hanging around in Audinghen, 4th May.
Sunken death and the dying dog.
Bonjour! I am really getting used to waking up in France now. We woke late after snoozing off all that bargainous wine so missed the boulangerie on wheels, but it was okay, we still had bread from the market in Wimeroux yesterday.
Today is laundry day. Our first and probably not last attempt at washing our clothes by hand. There was something quite therapeutic about going back to basics and scrubbing away at a porcelain sink rather than stuffing everything into a machine and hearing it thunder for the next hour or so. It made it less of a chore and more like a way of life.
I made French scrambled eggs for petite de’jeuner/de’jeuner, they are the same as English ones apart from the eggs eggs were laid by French hens.
Audinghen is so peaceful, I cant imagine how many people live here as have only seen tourists visiting the muse just outside the campsite gates and the few French people who are staying on the campsite. The people you do see are friendly though and a “bonjour” is always exchanged in passing.
Walking through the campsite on our way out to discover Audringhem there are men playing French boules, they have been there every day, today they even raked the gravelly ‘green’ with a flat rake. I wonder if they keep an ongoing track of scores? We walk down a path near woodlands to where there are buildings still standing from WW2. You can go in them, on them and around them, they are vast and quite a reminder blot on the landscape. We got thinking about what happened here all those years ago. Imagining all of the death now sunken into the ground. They are covered in graffiti now, we even saw a family come prepared with spray paint to add their stamp. Farmers are harvesting around them and oddly they are buzzing with life from visiting tourists.. They do look unusually pretty in a kind of un-nerving and slightly morbid manner. We decided to go to the beach and take some wine, so we skipped back up the path to get wine from the caravan, a blanket, plastic wine glasses and most importantly, a bottle opener. The walk to the beach takes about 15 minuets, the path opens out onto quite a small pebbly beach with pools of sand here and there. Bob chooses a spot on the pebbles, I choose to lay the blanket down first then join him on the pebbles. The view is spacious yet intimate as it is cove-like but with endless views of the sloshing sea.
I find a flat pebble, perfect to use as a coaster and we sit enjoying wine. There were other people on the beach but its not busy, its just right. Half way through our first glass we are sure that we see somebody’s dog drowning about ten meters into the water, the owners stood casually just pointing at the dying animal. We feel sick and want to shout “Go and get your dog!”. They then start pointing further down the water, a head appeared above the waves. I decided to intervene as feeling quite shocked and sick at the thought of them not rescuing it, I thought I would. I stumbled as fast as I could over the pebbles, my feet sinking into the damp ones the further I get to the shore, desperately I tried to see the dog. I am ready to plunge into the water as it disappeared. I stood for a long time wanting its head to pop back up so much. There was nothing. Bob came down the beach toward me then broke the news that it wasn’t a dog. He had spoken to what we thought of as the most un-loving owners and they had informed him that it wasn’t their dog, it was a ‘sea dog’ or walrus! Thank goodness. Settled back on my blanket I started to imagine myself delving into the freezing sea, heaving out the walrus by its massive teeth feeling rather good about mydelf and then giving the poor German people a right going at. I didn’t get to be the heroine this time, but at least the thought was there.
We managed to sink the bottle of wine and wanted to throw a message in a bottle out to sea, but we didn’t have a pen.
Slightly tipsy we made our way home and I made lunch of pan, salade, carrots and Bob had sosage and le dairy lee too. Our budgeting today has been right on target, 0 Euro! More days like this (without the dying dog episode) and we can be on the road forever.
Tomorrow we are moving on. We are unsure if we are going to continue our coastal journey or head more inland a little? We can decide tomorrow, no rush, which is Bob’s new phrase.
I am eyeing up some more Vib de Rouge, think I will ask Bob if he fancies a glass to accompany the sosage I can hear him carving .Bon nuit for now, x
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