The campsite we are staying on is a kilometre or so outside Neufchâtel-en-Bray in Northern Normandy. To all intents and purposes it really should be nowhereville; in actuality it's rather charming in a mundane sort of way. We needed to find a tabac so Gill could top-up her France Orange Sim. So as she did the deed, I looked after the bikes and watched the French world go by. In essence it has not changed so very much in the forty years since Gill and I first hitched and bussed our way around Brittany - the bar-tabac has added sim cards to lottery tickets, and no longer wafts Gallois from its dark interior.
The restaurant next door's plat de jour seems unchanged, and people still screech-up to the boulangerie across the road, park on the pavement and hop out for their patisserie, leaving the car unlocked with the engine running.
Within a few yards the other mainstays of everyday existence - La Poste and Pharmacie were a stroll away, and it took Gill no time at all to hop around the corner and buy two small quiches for lunch at the charcouterie. Later they proved to taste just as good as they looked.
In many respects the entire place resembled the film-strip version of a French town that accompanied the tapes of the experimental audio visual French language course I was subjected to at school. "Voila Monsieur Thibault....."
Some things of course have changed. The life size cow sculptures adorning the roundabout for example are an inspired modern addition, but even these celebrate a quirky localism, reminding visitor and native alike of Neufchâtel's proud history of cheese making.
When we bewail the demise of the British high street, the advent of out-of-town superstores gets cited as the usual suspect. If this is the case, how come, on a Tuesday morning, the shops in Neufchâtel were far from empty, yet the small town still boasts an E Leclerc, Aldi, Lidl and Super U on its outskirts? So, antidote number one to grumpiness - the ability to buy a simple, tasty quiche that has not been overpriced, and gifted an 'artisan' adjectival prefix.
2. Greenways or Avenue Vert.
A converted old railway track runs by the campsite. The cycleway goes all the way to Dieppe in one direction, and off towards Abbeville in the other. It's easy to ride, has an asphalt surface, and wends its way through the rich, verdant Norman coutryside following the valley of the river Bethune. Within minutes of leaving the campsite you find unexpected delights; some commonplace - cattle grazing in the rich alluvial pasture beneath poplars and may blossom - like a Monet come to life.
Other rarer delights, a white peacock spreading its fan-tail, feathers shining like silver lace in the sun; rounding a corner and coming face to face with an enormous white chateau, which seemed to appear from nowhere.
Rebecca Solnit wrote about the magic of 'a nearby faraway'. Neufchâtel seems like that, it's proving difficult to stay grumpy!
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