D Roads to Dieppe, Zagan’s Been De-Squeaked!

Zagan the motorhome is feeling tip-top, having had his on-board mouse-squeal removed by a nice Monsieur Le Mechanique at the Fiat garage in Dieppe. Huzzah! Team Zagan is a few €’s lighter, but we’re on top of the world. We’re parked up in the brand new €0-a-night aire in Auffay (N49.71332 E1.09880); cue many “are you au-fait with that dear?” quips. Whahahahhahah, I’m so funny. Hmmmm.

New aire at Auffay. Very nice it is too, although we’re a frog’s leap from the train tracks so noise levels yet to be assessed!

“Huh? eh? what’s that?” my eyes crept open as Ju pointed out Charlie was squeaking at the door in the dark hours of the morning. “I’ll let him out” she offered. Nah, couldn’t do it to her, I got up. Anyway, we take it in turns sleeping on the outside of the bed for this very reason. The muttski has a tendancy to eat any old gumph he can get his jaws on, and his grumbling tum requires a munch on the local long grass to see himself right. Clothes dragged on, torch grabbed, the great grass-munchathon took about 15 minutes before I was allowed back in for kip. Our much-loved hound deserves nothing less.

“Shall we ask that man over there?” We were up by now, although it was already gone 9am on a Monday morning when we went vertical. Ju nodded towards a guy in the car park pulling on wellies and lifting a cockle-rake from the boot of his car. “Arrrhhhhmmm”, my ego answered. ASK ANOTHER MAN WHERE THERE MIGHT BE A LOCAL GARAGE!!!??? Preposterous, I’ll just sniff one out with my man-nostrils. Ju, bless her, went and asked doing a fine job of speaking French and getting directions to a place in nearby Cayeux-Sur-Mer. Off we tootled, my brain trying to work out how to explain we have a squeaky alternator belt in French.

Rolling up to the garage, it took me a mo to get my bearings. French garages all (I’ve been in a handful!) seem to have a sort of concierge system. You can’t speak to the mechanics directly, but instead a kind of knowledgeable secretary-cum-manager talks to you, does a bit of triage and books you in. This time the chap sucked a few lungfuls of air, while I explained we had some tortured mice in the engine’s alternator belted area, then told us we were too big. The next thing, which always seems to happen (aka, second time for us), he told us we need a Fiat garage, and wrote down the names of places in Dieppe and Amiens. T’interweb provided the address, and off we SQUUEAAALLLLED, down the D925 to Dieppe.

Dieppe, still quite a nice little port!

More concierging at the Fiat garage and with a rendez-vous booked in for 3pm Team Zagan headed for Dieppe with the address of a self-service laundrette stabbed into the Satnav. Which happens to be at 5 Rue du Mortier D’Or 76200 Dieppe if you are in need of such an establishment – near the cathedral, down the road from the tourist info office.

Itinerant motorhomer spotted eyeballing book of aires while 3 week’s washing dries in the background

Bag on left: Jay. Bag on right: Ju. Conclusion: Ju is twice as clean as Jay

As the washing washed, we had a quick reccy of Dieppe. Quite a nice little place, and it currently has two motorhome aires! Both €7 a night to stay though, and Zagan was no-doubt about to receive a hefty main-dealer fettling bill!

Before returning to the garage Zagan even got a hoover. Filthy we are (were), filthy!

As Zagan underwent the knife, after having had his steering wheel wrapped in clingfilm, Ju and I sat about leafing through French magazines looking at the pictures. I’ve felt less nervous awaiting blood test results.

This is becoming a familiar vista after the clutch-bust-in-Narbonne experience

40 minutes later (with my internal calculator totting up the bill by now to €200), having received umpteen ‘bonjours’ from all the staff and punters, plus a decent brew each, the main man re-appears. “Suivez-moi? Pas grave, pas grave”. Only when he told me it wasn’t serious did I start think ‘this must be serious’. I followed him as if being led to the gallows. With Zagan up on the lift and his innards exposed, the main man and the actual mechanic pointed at something and explained it in detail. My brain went into slow-mo, but eventually grasped they’d sorted the problem (a belt was mis-aligned) and that a plastic cover for the cam-belt was partially broken. Not a problem for the next couple of months, but needs sorting when we come back. Phew. The oil filter was loose too, he’d tightened it up. Total cost: £50 ish, not cheap, but worth every de-squeaking penny as we now feel the van’s in great shape to get some France-snaffling done!

Fiat’s used to be small!

As they’d got us sorted quickly, the option to get started south to the Loire looked a good ‘un, so we’ve got a few miles in down the freebie motorway to Auffay. Ambled about, we have, and it looks a pleasant little town. Right. Grub-cookin’ time.

Auffay

Cheers, Jay