Hotel du Havre
E Pouchin
Sur le Quai
Caudebec-en-Caux
le 11 August 1907
My dear Ethel,
It seems a long time since I wrote to you, so I will do so this evening while Kathleen writes to Father. You would like this place I think, the scenery round is really lovely & there are any amount of nice walks or drives; the hotel is very comfortable & the cooking excellent, so we live on the fat of the land.
Our room is quite a nice one & on the ground floor in contrast to the one at Rouen which was up 86 steps, the femme de chambre here evidently considers that doing a room means merely making the beds & emptying the slops, so that now we have been in the room some days we rather long to have a broom & duster. Kathleen is very pleased with the French money, she says 5d seems to go as far as 6d & 10 francs as far as 10/-. This afternoon we committed an extravagance & hired a carriage to drive out to Jumieges, a most beautiful drive following the banks of the Seine, but a little way above it all the way. Jumieges is about 14 kilometres (about 10 miles) from here & there are most splendid ruins of an old Abbey Church there, it was a Norman Church & there are two fine tall towers left, the greater part of the nave & aisles & a the highest Chancel arch that I have ever seen anywhere; besides there are remains of some of the chapels & another smaller church of the seventh century & also some of the monastic buildings, but the latter are not shown, as the owner lives there. This morning we went to high mass at the fine old church here, the music was rather good; it seemed so funny to see the old Curé himself come all round the Church to collect the offertory, of course the Suisse preceded him, & after him a nun came round also collecting, but I don’t know what for.
We think of leaving here tomorrow morning & going to Dieppe, we have written to the Hôtel du Globe & Victoria to ask them to retain a room, & hope to hear tomorrow that they can take us in, if not we shall have to wander round looking for an hôtel & if all were full, we should have to take the night boat & turn up like bad pennies at home. There is a Punch & Judy show going on in front of this hôtel, we watched it & the surrounding crowd for a little while from the balcony where we have our dinner.
I hope you enjoyed your day at Malvern & had it fine; I wonder if anyone has heard anything of George since he went to camp, I suppose he is back in town now or will be in a few hours time. Are you going with G.F.S. girls on Wednesday? I hope they will have a fine day; did you get the Magazines taken round by one of the girls? I meant to have asked you to do so.
So poor old Uncle Noakes is dead, I daresay Aunt Sarah will feel his death, but it will really be a good thing for her to have a little peace.
I expect you & May have been busy, I have not even heard yet how you got on at Ilkley. I hope you enjoyed it & are feeling the better for it.
Monday. I am writing this while waiting at Malamey near Rouen for the Dieppe & will post it there.
Much love to all
Your loving Mother
Eugénie N Sladden
