Caudebec-en-Caux

After our trip to Honfleur we ate dinner then walked around the town where our ship was moored at Caudebec-en-Caux.

The church was the largest building; stone carvings, many of them minus heads and  crumbling, filled every niche in the external walls.

Most of the houses though, were elegant and well maintained. Water ran along a channel which was actually a drain, but, in true French style had been turned into a thing of beauty, with baskets of flowers and branches of weeping trees, decorating the stone walls.

On the way back to our ship we stopped to admire and photograph the cute garden figures in the window of the Corner Flower Shop.

I attended Mass in the church next day and was pleased to find that, although funds were needed for restoration and maintenance, the inside of the building, and particularly the stained glass windows, were in fairly good condition.

Here, too, children had made model boats and written letters (perhaps to God, or the Virgin Mary.)

Having checked opening times for the Flower Shop on the corner, I headed that way after church. Who could resist the frog  wielding his spade, or the girl with flying pigtails riding a bicycle? The place was busy with locals buying potted plants and bunches of flowers. Knowing that we could only find room for small articles in our luggage, I bought the smallest of the frogs for Sue and the little girl with yellow hair and cheeky smile, to take home as a present, but that bicycle was so tempting.

The shop owner had already left for the day, and we were due to sail away that evening. The lass on duty spoke no English and although I tried in French to negotiate the sale plus postage, we were getting nowhere and the rest of the customers were becoming impatient.

‘Does anyone speak English please?’ I asked in my best French. A mature lady, very elegant and charming, came to my rescue. However, as the post office was closed, naturally, being Sunday, finding a price to add to the cost of the bicycle with girl attached, proved too difficult. I still have their card though and might, one day, surprise the owner with a phone call.

While I stayed with the ship most of the group visited the Normandy beaches. As I had recently been to Gallipoli, I didn’t feel like another heart wrenching outing, but my sister came back  with a mass of photos and great tales about her day out. I particularly like the shot of her with two veterans who visit Normandy  each year to honour their dead comrades.