A Plan

We devised a plan last night. A plan!

We'd leave Schitter's Ditch at first light, or as close thereafter as can be considered to be gentlemanly, given that the locks aren't open for business until seven and we aren't until well after that. Being nicely settled in Saverne for elevensies would be fine.

In describing our mooring yesterday I may have left out the bit where our side of the pond was actually lined with forest, albeit with a loading platform for heavy industry between us and it and as we've know from past experience, boats, forests and storms combine to create something that could pass for an impersonation of a floating pile of Mr Schitter's finest organic compound. Under clear sky and bright morning sunshine we gently moved our soggy pile of leaves in direction Saverne across the first mirrored pond we had seen for a month.

We were quite unaccustomed to the stillness of it all, the dryness too, to say nothing of the brightness and warmth, but with morning coffee steaming up the windows and reducing visibility to something more akin to that to which we've been accustomed in the past few weeks, we soon felt much more at home.

The waterways were eerily quiet, with the holiday season now over, and anyone with any sense having remained a long way from where we were until the weather abated, we would reach our destination before crossing the path of another boat. Lest anyone should misunderstand, our journey today was at least seven kilometres in total spread over a hearty couple of hours. There just didn't seem to be any point in going any faster, we had a plan after all and if we arrived too early we might have to think up another one. Besides, it was just one of those mornings when the world was alive, the air was fresh and crisp and apart from the smoke of the diesel and perhaps the noise, and maybe the TGV scooting past at it's treble ton every twelve minutes or so, and the occasional motorway bridge above filled with peak hour traffic, we had only the stillness of the countryside to keep us company.

And so it came to be, back in our berth in Saverne, in front of the Chateau, boat mopped and sparkling in the bright sunshine, we in shorts sitting sipping coffee and finishing off the banana cake, all by eleven.

Tonight?  I'll bet they left their lights on just for us.

I love it when a plan comes together.