Training

Lunch went for so long yesterday that we quite forgot that we hadn't had dinner by the time we flopped into bed, and we thought it was probably the perfect ending to what had been a long and quite productive week.

In fact, so long and productive was last week that even if we had not had a long standing arrangement to be elsewhere, we may well have disappeared for a break today in any case.

Our Tony kindly drove us in to Luneville not long after breakfast, and we foundf a train to Nancy, and then one to Paris, another to St Quentin and in day rapidly becoming less tropical than we prefer, to Cambrai.

The journey was at the once relaxing yet strangely arduous as our nerves began to wind themselves tighter as every on of the eight hours of travel passed bringing us closer to the reason for the journey, closer to Tam and Di Murrell's renowned Barge Handling School and hopefully to our formal licenses, technically known as International Certificates of Competence.

It seemed that every kilometre as we studied the code we found some new and impossible contradiction.

One of us didn't want to be here in the first place, and the other was hoping against hope that the penalty he might pay for his minor victory would be short and relatively painless.

Over a few drinks with Tam and Di, it became clear that through some happy circumstance we had both suddenly become of one accord.