Fine autumnal days have finished for certain this time, and winter is ushered in with a dynamic westerly front. Those big grey clouds brought cold now, not just pelting rain. It is the nature of the beast, we suppose whilst trundling down to Royan, gruff winds blow around here this time of the year. The towns get further apart and further closed - usually overcrowded during the hot days - but now it’s all the same with creepy boarded-up homes; red tiles up top that nestle next to barren green pines. The caravan is hoping to catch a ferry across the Gironde rivermouth and make camp around Soulac-sur-Mer. Prevailing winds push Del, Bodean and Hellybutt down into the affluent-seeming Royan - it’s wealth wasn’t so clearly defined, the place was tacky and the brown whipped sea painted a good for nothin’ picture. Bodean seems to like it though, saying stuff like “Jolly good show” and “Milk with two sugars, please” he is part of the English gentry after all, and those respectable people love this goddamn seaside parasol parading shit.
Old scratchers always work the ferries - yellow stained hair and worn hands - and when the big boat berths and they are half-cut on wine, they land the ship just as good with a little more yelling than usual. Swell lashes in and around the docking bay and the iron tub sways happily as the bicycles are lashed to rails and so on. Rolling thunder and the rolling poop-decks! There’s the first asian mail-order bride to be seen in France and Hellybutt wonders what her French is like, as she squeals and clutches to a ponytailed man, who has a stance like he’s knowing these waters.
Over the great open gushing mouth, that spews and sucks at the Atlantic with every turning tide, the forest wants to take the caravan in and shelter any of God’s creatures. Please God. Everything is damp - the air, the mossy ground, the roaring ocean over the dune and those forest beasts - the ragunder, the wild boar and the hooting owls. The slugs are too, but that ain’t nothing new, as they crawl all over the tents and into mugs. Surely, Beatrix Potter is vacationing on the continent, and she must be nearby talking to those wet animals and maybe she could cook us dinner? That is very old fashioned and so it goes - eventually the fuss about the damp is accepted and scattered sleep falls on the tiny forest grotto.
