6...The commute to work

Having been back in Brighton for the last couple of weeks, I've come back to Normandy today to see how the garden grows and to get on with some work. Autumn and winter are a busy time for me as it is during this time that I get the space to be able to design and make new work. I have a few ideas running around in my head, and now I need to get them down onto paper and start experimenting with the clay.

I tend to go back and forth on a weekly/fortnightly basis, so I suppose I am a channel commuter. However, as I go everywhere by bike, my commute is a ferry then a cycle ride, lovely in good weather as it was today.

Coming into Dieppe



The journey to my town is an hour or so from the port and is in the next valley along. That means that I have to climb a hill at some point, there's no escaping that, and after puffing my way up the steep hill out of Dieppe many times I now cycle along to Arques le Bataille and take a more gradual hill on a much quieter road.

The castle at Arques, half way up the hill

The roads in France are a dream to cycle. The few cars that pass you on the quieter roads will give you a wide berth and there is no sense of the war between cars and bikes that there is in Britain. People walking along the side of the road or working in their gardens will always say Bonjour as you pass.

Sugar beet mountain

The countryside changes all the time, at this time of year there are piles and piles of sugar beet loaded up by the side of the road awaiting collection. They'll soon be off to make lots of cheap european sugar.