Friday 25th May: A quieter day (to end with a trip to the local Intermarché, for one or two goodies to take home – cheese, wine, cidre – and a tankful of diesel, same price in €s as in £s at home). Not forgetting our last look at the Baie de Somme railway – succeeding, this time, in getting that pool in the foreground.

North of the Somme estuary lie many miles of sandy beaches, backed by high dunes. Nearest point of access (apart from a lengthy walk through the dunes to the sea, too far for such a hot day) was at Quend Plage. A walk for mile or two along the shore was sufficient (not being sunbathers ourselves, and we’re trying not to see the over-exposed bathers, who really would have been well-advised to cover up, for all imaginable reasons). “There ought to be a path back along the dunes, or perhaps just behind them”. There wasn’t. There were deer, but they ran away too quickly for the camera. There were paths, but they didn’t go where we wanted to, and away from the sand, a near-impenetrable scrub meant we had a hot and uncomfortable struggle back to the car…