Campervan Therapy

Dieppe Again and the Start of Our February Campervan Therapy

We fail to dodge the pelting rain at home as we pack the van up. But the  Channel from Newhaven to Dieppe is calm today, providing just a gentle rock to my dozing. Notre-Dame de Bonsecours stands sentinel on the chalk cliff, guarding Dieppe’s port, its tangle of buildings and alleyways. Dieppe is still a working port, the fish market attracting queues of locals. We drive past the tall narrow houses clustered around the port, each one a bar, restaurant or crêpe stall before camping up at the stop right by the sea.

Soon we’re powerwalking (well, I am, Seán trudging behind!) along the promenade, the white cliffs to the west shining in the dusk, the sea a gentle shade of jade.

Dusk’s half-light and the ghostly white cliffs fit the memorials to the Canadian soldiers who were trapped on this beach and died in WWII. So many young lives lost, so many people left to grieve on the other side of the Atlantic. It is all too reminiscent of the recent shenanigans across the globe.

On a lighter note, Dieppe attracted so many artists, due, I think to the quality of the light as I watch the sky turn a mellow peach. I love the reproductions of the paintings posted around the bay. They stand at the exact viewpoint the artist took.

I always seek out the one facing the green beside the promenade where Jacques-Émile Blanche painted a fish-fair scene in 1929. I love it for the bustle of the fair, for the women in flapper dresses, for the striped tents, for the world long gone (made much more romantic by the painting. To live in a time before antibiotics would have been no fair-day!)

But I also love the painting on a personal note as my grandmother’s maiden name was Blanche all the way across the channel and Irish Sea, in New Ross, County Wexford, a town with a strong Norman history. It just goes to show that there’s more that unites us all than divides us. (End of sermon!)

As the light is dimming, long-suffering Seán raises a quizzical eyebrow as I take off up the uneven cliff path. I’ve spotted a man looking out to sea by the imposing 15^th Century castle. If I see a potential killer-view, I just have to chase it.

Even Seán puffing along behind me has to admit that the eagle eye view of the town is worth the slog in the failing light. There are domes aplenty, surprising towers and lookouts, cupolas and spires, some of which are invisible from ground level.

The white and blue lights of the promenade and the flood-lit ancient gate-towers  gives the town a fairy tale aspect.

We stand by another painter’s viewpoint, Eva Gonzalez, a student of Manet, and try to match her vision of the natural shoreline and wide, wide sea with today’s promenade before ducking into the Art Nouveau interior of the half-timbered Le Café des Tribunaux for the first cheeky Kir of the trip.

Followed by supper in La Frégate –  fish terrine, bass in a Norman sauce – evenings don’t get much better than this.