Dayo, day-ay-ay-oh! Montureaux-sur-Baulay to Port-sur-Saone

Determined though we were to abide by our fundamental rule, that we do not leave our bed until something reaches double figures, whether that be time or temperature, by nine-something and with the temperature also reading nine-something, I thought I'd speed up the process by reaching for the heater button.

Not long after, or it may have been sometime approaching ten, we were astonished to hear a sound the likes of which we had not heard for almost exactly a week.   A boat, laden with holiday makers who had clearly been just as stranded as everyone else on the river was burbling it's way past.

The river had once again, unannounced, presumably to keep traffic down to a dull crawl, been opened for business.   The nice man at the lock had assured me that there were no problems downstream, but just be careful at the next lock where the confluence of a second flooded river and the main barrage spillway happen to be on each side of the exit and it was a little messy.

Thus assured we departed, happy to be free again, idling at a rocketing twelve kilometres per hour down the torrent towards Port-sur-Soane, where we discovered a quasi-American gospel group singing in quasi English (to be fair to me, I had not considered Harry Belefonte's "Banana Boat" to be strictly speaking a gospel song until this very night), a quasi chef who looked for all the world like Super Mario, and a quasi-Noah hard at work intent on defeating the next flood should it be the big one.

Just how long was a cubit again?