Chasse Aux Châteaux d’Eau

The tide must have dragged the ferry across the Channel as we’re kicked off earlier than usual, 4am. Another hours sleep would have been nice but stars speckle the sky indicating promising weather for the day ahead. A gentle climb twists out of Dieppe over the cliffs. A sweeping pulsing cone of light in the blackness ahead as we lean into hairpins we can’t see. Turning inland we swerve a hedgehog feasting on squished roadkill. A little further along a hedgehog bum shuffles into the grass verge. A fox is silhouetted against street lamps ahead. Lanes cleft into the land and darkness, the smell of earth. A cockerel crows somewhere in the valley we’re climbing away from. The dark melts into light slowly. A field full of tractors. Perfect lines scored across brown fields. An orange fan opens on the underside of a cloud as the sun lifts from the horizon. A bell clangs in a brutalist church. Coffees and pastries amongst boxes of tomatoes and lettuces whilst listening to village chatter. Two…