As the sun was shining it's last this afternoon I happened to set my foot ashore for the first time today. For the purposes of this exercise, being on the pontoon doesn't count as ashore, as I'd spent an goodly part of the day inverted, sanding paint off the lower rubbing strips and sanding scratches out of the metal bumpers and when I got tired of that (after about a minute actually), I spent pretty much all day trial fitting three tarpaulin covers over the boat. Exactly how one can spend all day tying and untying three tarpaulins is beyond me, but I did.

That and making clips for all the ties, and fitting extra grommets in the tarps and commiserating with our German neighbours who were doing the same thing.

Meanwhile inside, things were deathly quiet. The sort of quiet that in a former life would have meant that the kids are about to get into serious trouble. The silent cleaner was at work, washing, organising and just doing stuff that needed doing.

But I digress. As the sun was shining it's last this afternoon, and I set my foot ashore for the first time today, I happened to wander past the Marina Office and as I glanced in, I couldn't help but notice that the seagull in the gift shop, captured in the day's last sunbeam, was flying south. Just why there are Seagulls in the gift shop which seems to be about as far from the sea as Alice Springs is, remains a mystery, but not as big a mystery as how it is that each year when it's time, that birds just seem to be able to go.

I'm fairly sure they don't put tarps over things, they just sort of fly off really and trust that it will all be there when they get back.

Before they fly, I'll bet they don't have lists of jobs that get shorter proportional to the time left to departure, or even bigger lists of things to do on their return that get longer in the inverse proportion.

But then they don't have the endless rounds of farewell dinners and afternoon coffee either, which I rather suspect they'd quite enjoy.

Joyeux

Exactly a year ago, (from Friday next) I sent an email to the folk at NavigFrance asking if the boat they had advertised was still for sale. He wasn't perfect by a long shot, (boats are boys in the French language) but he was cheap and they'd given it a bit of a scrub before we arrived, and agreed to do more work over winter. We were delighted, and named him Joyeux (Happy) in honour of our mood and the times that we would have on board.

Since then the team in Lagarde have looked after us as if we were family, which is nice because we think we are, and we've given him more of a scrub, and fixed a few things and made lists of things that still need fixing, very long lists.  But he shines in the sunlight now, and most of the water runs outside when it rains.

We've also travelled a few kilometres together this year, 670 of them to our amazement when we added them up, traversed 204 locks, and for all his ragged edges, and he's lived up to his name.

Today was a perfect day. We knew that it must end, but there was no harm to be had in stalling that time by travelling back to base even more slowly than usual, with the roof back and our feet up, until we simply ran out of river and locks and excuses to stay out longer.

As we were waiting to enter the lock that would bring us into the harbour this morning, for the last time this season, we wandered over to lend a hand to a Swiss family heading in the opposite direction. Their expressions could only be described as beaming and as he took his rope back, the patriarch of the troop looked at the sky and pointed to the boat, and said something in German which I didn't quite understand, so he repeated it for me in English.

"It's like a child's dream" he said.

We could find no argument.

Joyeux.

Another Slice?

We thought for a time that our chocolate cake of yesterday had been for nought.  The promised sunshine seemed a long way off as the day dawned darker than grey.  It was so much darker than grey that the street lights were still lit as we had our breakfast coffee, and while we don't have an accurate measure of humidity, we could hear large drops of it falling on our roof, which seemed to be a fair indication that it might be dampish outside.

As we motored off through the autumn once again however, contemplating whether to waste another piece of chocolate cake on someone who clearly wasn't up to speed on this weather manufacturing business, the sun burst through for long enough to take three photographs as evidence that we were there when it did.

As he drank more of our coffee and ate the last of our cake, he promised us that the next few days would be sensational and as if he owed us something, he called on a mate or two to give him a hand to get us through the chain of locks lest we should get caught and have to wait till the conclusion of the sacred lunch hour.   That was kind of him, but of course it meant we had no excuse to stop for lunch ourselves, so we pressed on to Gondrexange where the weather reminded us that it wasn't tomorrow yet, and we decided to keep moving until it was, or at least until it was closer.

With that single decision we found that we were in travel mode once more, anxious to get "there", thinking that perhaps we were travelling at less than the customary six kilometres per hour, timing ourselves to make sure we hadn't slowed.   Then we wondered where "there" actually is.

We have no sense of heading "home".  We are slowly turning round,  heading back to visit children and friends and play with grandchildren, and the house we rent from the Government, but home for us very clearly now, is where our handbag is.

For tonight, home is in the middle of a forest of yellow and red and green, with a carpet of freshly fallen leaves across our waterway, the rain has stopped and there is a postage stamp of blue in a corner of the sky.   

Perhaps it just takes two slices of cake for him to get it right. 

Chocolate Cake

There are thirteen locks between the top of the hill and Mittersheim, twelve in the nine kilometres we had to travel today, and while they are in the process of being automated they still need manual attention, which means making an appointment for an eclusier (Lock Keeper) to attend to each in turn.

There are only so many places one can look when opening and closing a lock, to avoid making eye contact and therefore having to respond to inane conversation in polite grunts in a language not of one's own, and our fellow knew every one of them, even during the times I was at his end of the lock helping him grind the gates closed.

By the fourth, I'd had enough.

I waved the stovetop espresso pot at him through the hatch and called "Cafe Monsieur?"

His eyes lit up, and he replied (in English) "At the next lock eh?"

Perhaps it was the fresh coffee, or maybe the slice of chocolate cake that came with it, we can't be sure, but by the fifth lock, he could speak French, German and a little Spanish, and was unnecessarily apologetic for what he perceived to be his imperfect English.   In the remaining half dozen stops, we heard the story of his life and he ours, and he promised us a fine sunny tomorrow for our return through the forest.

We've kept some cake, just in case.

Another Sunday

If it wasn't an inanimate lump of metal it would be hard to believe that Mr Perkins didn't delay us deliberately, pending the dawn of a perfect day.

When we (eventually) rose this morn, that day had arrived.  Everything in the village was smiling. The sun was the sort of sun we watch people here sitting in all day and shudder, so there was nothing for it but to slide the roof back and see what that is about. We thought we'd just simply soak up the gloriousness of it all as they do, although in a small concession to our Australian-ness I did wear a hat and our underwear remained just that.

Before we could leave there was a plethora of decisions to be made, with our usual complete lack of plan the thought briefly occurred that we perhaps could accompany Saskia to Nancy, but in the end it was lack-of-plan "A" that held sway and we turned left in direction Strasbourg leaving further decisions for the appropriate time.

With temperatures like a warm winter's day at home and the sky clear blue we slowed from our normal six kilometres per hour to something less than walking pace, as we putted our way through the forest and the farmlands with semi denuded copses opening up distant vistas we hadn't seen before. All the while a gentle shower of golden leaves fluttered down upon us in our topless state.

Eventually though we came to the canal junction, and there was no escaping it, the time had arrived. Decision time. The spell was briefly broken while we faced reality for a few moments. Once again though, lack-of-plan "A" came up trumps, and once again we turned left, this time in direction Mittersheim, where everything quickly fell back into place, except now we had lakes as well as forest to glide through and not even the merest hint of breeze to break the reflections. Finally we could take no more and so it came to be that tonight we are moored betwixt farmland and forest, ready for anything tomorrow may throw at us.

Last year, while accompanying him on Manatee, Graham had a particular way of describing days like today. After a long day at the helm, he'd sit back in his easy chair with a glass of something refreshing in his hand and a big grin on his face. After a minute or two of silent reflection he'd sigh.

"Ahhhh" he'd whisper to himself, but loud enough for the world to hear,

"That was magic!"

Nowhere

The forecast said it would be fine, and get finer for the rest of the week, it just forgot to tell us how grey and wet the morning might possibly be until that happened, so we hung around until the wet part had left us and made our way off through the Autumn forest for an hour or two, once again in direction Rechicourt.

It seems that Lagarde has a magnetic spell on us at the moment though, as we were barely ready for lunch when the temperature gauge decided to tell us that we were running far too hot for good measure. After cleaning all the filters (again), and checking the propellor was clear, (yes the water was a bit chilly, thank goodness I could do it through the access hatch so was only wet up to my armpits) I was fairly sure the gauge was playing up, but to be safe we returned to the safety of home, and the long suffering Michel.

Michel was as perplexed as I, and he has the advantage of being perplexed in two additional languages, but between us we decided it was probably just a fault in the gauge and we were going to be ok to start again.

That was when the battery failed.

Fortunately that was also exactly the time Nick and Diana accidentally attempted to cruise by on Saskia, delaying us over coffee just long enough to ensure that we would probably be silly to leave today.

So tonight we will have left over Laksa and fresh Chocolate cake in Lagarde, and tomorrow in the sunshine, we may just head off again.

Cruising again

When we did get going it was just down to the lock and back because we didn't want to overdo this travel thing now that we are back in cruising mode, no longer tripping over tools at every turn. No, we thought, it's late, lets just ease ourselves in, warm everything up, specially the contents of the hot water tank, and sit back and perhaps we'll leave tomorrow after we've had a proper hot shower.

We are definitely back in the zone where time doesn't matter, which which was fortuitous really as earlier today Mr Perkins was in no more of a mood to take us anywhere than he was yesterday. In his defence, he gave us a glorious day in port and with Michel running exactly not on time, we were still here late in the afternoon, to witness the triumphant return of "our girls", one of the Aussie families we'd seen off barely a week ago in one of the charter boats.

Watching hirers depart from "our" pontoon is a bit like being a parent sending kids off to camp. We have a brief encounter as each party arrives to take charge of their vessel, in a mood of expectation with a little apprehension. If we are here for the return it is usually triumphant, full of excitement with tales of adventure and new lands conquered and "our girls" were no different. They returned keen to share their enthusiasm, and we just as keen to share in it.

It's like some sort of affirmation of our lifestyle decision!

They've fired us up, we might even leave in the morning, now that Michel has once again worked his wizardry.