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 water towers and twenty kilometres later sitting in the sunshine outside a patisserie enjoying a couple of quiches. We’ve been awake for hours and it was a long wait for those first pastries. Our bodies absorbed them quickly. There’s still a hole to fill.
Gentle rollercoaster roads weft between bright yellow and vibrant green fields. Zigging and zagging this way and that, the same place names on signposts, never too far from somewhere we’ve already been. A buzzard floats off to our side, rising and dipping mirroring the telephone cables slung between tall wooden telegraph poles.
Another town, another PMU bar. “Deux grands cremes s’il vous plait.” The gentle scrape of a Euro on scratch card behind us. A little dog scamper-slides across the tiled floor. TV news sounds better when you don’t understand all the words.
Brickwork patterns, stones set in stripes, timber frame grids. Another print project starts to form in my imagination. Across a field a water tower we passed a couple of hours ago.
Back into Dieppe for lunch on the square next to the huge church. Looking through stained glass windows to another set beyond, colours and light merging to create a temporary third image.
Out through the suburbs on the other side of town to loop around other plateaus and valleys. More familiar places. A couple more water towers to find before a glass of wine on the harbourside and the ferry home.
170 kilometres, 17 water towers. New zine Chasse Aux Châteaux d’Eau #2 available at BigCartel.
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