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Peaceful night but very cold so we are in no hurry as we have done the hard miles over the last three days.
It's bright and sunny as we set off close to midday. Travelling through the woods we are surprised by three juvenille stags chasing across the road less than 50 feet in front of us. They leap the hedge and jink through the trees with the sun catching their red flanks.
What we notince most today is the amount of flooding. We've seen waterlogged places coming up through France, but this is widescale flooding of farmland. It actually looks beautiful, trees and hedges surrounded by still, blue water, but it's obviously rendered many hectares of grazing and cereal fields useless. Other times we pass rivers right up to their banks. But signs of spring coming are here as well; daffodils, trees full of catkins and a few young lambs leaping about.
Our route takes us through two of our favourite Norman towns; first Bagnoles de l'Orne. We drive past its lake and through the main street of partly timbered buildings including a restaurant we enjoyed once. Just out of town we park for lunch and decide whether to revise our stop tonight as we are making good progress in the dry conditions. We settle on Granville out on the west coast.
Our second drive-through is Domfront and again a few happy memories come to mind.
Continuing west cloud builds and the wind gets up. Sporadic showers join in the fun making us conside if the coast really is the best option so we pull in and search the aires book again. Avranches has one near the castle so we reprogramme Snoopy and set off. Soon we can see Mont St Michel in the distance as the rain and skies clear. Unfortunately when we arrive the aire is quite slopng, certainly too much to ramp up and be anything like sleeping-level.
Granville it is then. We get to the town quite quickly but then have to drive right through the centre. Added to that, carnival preparations are in hand and a council truck is crawling along dropping cones. Then there is a diversion for roadworks. Finally we come out on an attractive harbour road, past a little fishing port with the sea stretching along the coast. The aire is up a hill near a WWII gun emplacement. We get a pitch overlooking the bay between two houses.
The sea is milky-green as rollers surge over the shallow bay with the tide just turning. As it comes in the rollers stop and small fishing boats coast into the commercial part of the harbour. Right below us the sea floods around the stone wall, gradually lifting beached boats back onto their moorings. It's a pretty sight even at only 2 degrees, then just after a rich, deep sunsest another squall lashes down.
When it abates Ali goes to get our parking ticket. The book said five Euros from 7pm to 10am but now it requires nine of them to get a ticket when it's 'Open All Hours'.
Three bucks this morning, nine bucks tonight. Deer oh dear G G G G Granville
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