When we arrived in Verdun, the rumour mill warnings of crowded port and paucity of space to moor even the smallest of boats did not disappoint, but we had spotted a deliciously adequate space alongside and equally delicious looking barge. The normal procedure when coming alongside is not to seek permission, but to engage in a kind of gunslinger stare-down with the occupant of the already moored vessel. When he or she blinks, one then flashes out with lines and fenders, preferably completing the process before any protest can be voiced, after which all settles in to a happy often even welcoming co-existence.
The occupants of our target in this instance, were clearly unaware of this code. There they stood as a welcoming committee, ropes at the ready and an invitation to afternoon tea too, even before we’d settled dear old Mr Perkins for his rest.
Chocolate mouse for afternoon tea, is something of a Belgian tradition according to Marianne, and it’s a splendid one we think, although afternoon tea on one boat soon blurred into dinner on another over conversation that at times was as urgent as if there would be no tomorrow.
Since they were moving on in the morning that was actually quite close to the truth, and as the sun hung low in one end of the sky, the moon a little higher in the other, we made a pact that somewhere, somehow, sometime in the future our paths would cross, and when it did we would complete those unfinished conversations.
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