Yesterday, a short time after we finally made contact with Jacques who was laughing near hysterically after somehow telepathically determining our whereabouts. Bill miraculously appeared from the depths of the engine bay where we keep him in case of just such an emergency, to offer a few words of encouragement as Scots are wont to do.
"Ooh dearr" was all he said.
Bill has actually studied languages at an extremely high level. He speaks half a dozen of them, so when he says "Ooh dearr", one has to assume he means what he says.
As he handed me the seventeen pieces of metal which were once the inner gears of the starter motor, I could see his point. He did however good naturedly, using nothing more than a couple of fingernails he didn't appear to need, and one or two bits of air to replace the missing cog, get us started just not quite in time for us to make a mad dash home before the last lock closed at seven.
Which is why, when we woke this morning we were no more than one hundred metres from our berth, but three metres above it, waiting patiently for the "nice" eclusier, who had knocked off ten minutes early last night, to arrive and let us through.
Footnote:
We are not alone in our battles Rechicourt, the photo above was taken at the precise moment that the heavily laden barge ran aground at full throttle while manouvering into the lock. The bargee indicated that he was a bit of concerned about this at the time by calling out rather loudly to the eclusier above, and making some sort of signal with a clenched fist. In response to my request for a translation, Bill assured me he was saying something that loosely meant:
"Pardon my French"…..
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