D***** Time Again

Alert regulars might have noticed that it's been a full ten months since I was last in Dieppe - was this going to be that rare thing, a Dieppeless year? The answer is of course no: Mrs N and I are heading that way again tomorrow (after overnighting in Lewes), taking the big lumbering ferry from Newhaven in the early morning.
 It now takes longer to get from London to Dieppe than it did in the later 19th century, when there were boat trains and fast and frequent steam packets delivering les Anglais smoothly into the heart of the old town, within yards of the restaurants on the Quai Henri IV. Even in the 1990s, as I remember, it was still possible to nip over to Dieppe for lunch and return in the early evening... Ah well, at least the ferry - unlike so many others - is still running.
 I might be filing the odd report from Dieppe, but if not I should be back in action some time next week.