Fading Memories

One of the really great things about mostly not making any plans is that we are in practice for them not coming off when we do.

We had planned to travel down to Strasbourg over the past few days so that Shell and Jules could rendezvous with their train home on Sunday, but we hadn't planned for one of the locks to be broken a few tens of kilometres from our destination. By their nature, boats are difficult things to take around obstacles on canals, and rather than try to do that, in the light of the Canal Authority's advice that it would be fixed "after lunch on Friday" and our uncertainty about just how that might translate to a timeframe which could be relied upon, we decided that it might be prudent to take a train for a day of sightseeing rather than risk the journey by boat.

At a few hundred kilometres per hour, Strasbourg is just twenty minutes away, saving a day and a half of canal travel, but on our arrival the realisation that we were just "common tourists" without a place in the harbour to retreat to when we were a little tired or hungry took some minor getting used to. We did make it through a visit to the Tourist Office without being recognised as boat people, which is a first for a while, but that may have been because of the pallid English complexions carried by the "kids" so we aren't sure whether to count that as a feat or not.

The opportunity to tour the canals on a well organised ferry with commentary in twelve languages was one we couldn't refuse of course. Life wouldn't be the same without at least an hour on the water, and negotiating the locks did go very smoothly indeed with a captain and a deckhand doing the chores. Perhaps we'll have to look into that, and while we're at it, a pair of headphones that knew where we were at all times would be a handy addition to our kit.

As for Strasbourg, well of course it's a beautiful city, and we need much more than a day there to become familiar with its corners so we will return, perhaps in a few days and when we do we'll stay for a while. But that is starting to sound like a plan, and we will have the choice of two directions when we depart.

Shell and Jules leave on Sunday, and it will be time to decide our next move. We really have no clue at the moment, and that is just the way we like it.