The Canal du Nord is famous or perhaps notorious for being busy. It’s a motorway on which large ships travel for twelve hours or more per day, interrupted only by large locks and an even larger tunnel. Even if we were capable of travelling at the speed of the ships, and if there was room in the locks for us, which we mostly are not and there sometimes is not, it would take us a couple or at worst several days to travel from here to where we want to be.
We therefore timed our stay in Douai terribly carefully, so that we could leave today, Saturday, travelling over the weekend when the number of ships would be reduced and perhaps our progress and our overnight stay on the canal might be as smooth as it possibly could.
Then we heard that Mike and Jude were arriving today from the opposite direction and it was not a difficult decision to trade a day of commuting for one of late night, food, laughter and the sort of rapid fire conversation that only people who haven’t spoken with others of the same accent for a time can know. Anyway, it’s going to be sunny and warm tomorrow, apparently.
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