Changing Gear - Tours-sur-Marne to Mareuil-sur-Ay

We finally seem to be back in the swing of this cruising lark.

Determined to get an early start, we woke not much more than half an hour after the locks had opened for business, and within another half an hour or perhaps a little more we were on our way, with two locks and seven kilometres to travel in what was left of the day.  

It probably goes without saying that those kilometres were completed without incident, although we were slightly disappointed to discover on our arrival in Mareuil-sur-Ay that preparations for our welcoming party were only just beginning.   The party itself is scheduled for tomorrow, a national holiday apparently and the organisers have thoughtfully erected the bars and cafe tents where patrons will have a terrific view of all the boats in the harbour, specially the blue one, which in turn will be in a position to receive with extraordinary clarity, every note as the accordionist hits his stride long into the night.

Forewarned is forearmed we thought, and if we are destined to have a late night tomorrow, then tonight in the French way, we should have an even later one to get into some sort of routine.    This was not a difficult thing to do as Grahame and Aileen, being completely unaware of what lay ahead, turned up as scheduled en route to their boat, bravely feigning absence of jet lag  and stoically swapping notes and tales of the past year  until it was almost tomorrow.

Cruising! Chalons-en-Champagne to who cares?

Perhaps, in our concern  for the ex-garden yesterday, we may have omitted confirmation of the fact that we are now, exactly as planned, in cruising mode.

By now I should not have to repeat that cruising mode means making no plans, not caring about deadlines, getting up late or maybe very early, going to bed early or maybe very late, having cups of tea with the others in the harbour and so on, which is exactly how our day began, except that we thought we'd wander around Chalons for a bit in the misty rain as well, buying some carrots and bread and cheese and except for one of us mistakenly referring to the gentleman behind one of the counters as "madam", generally passing ourselves of as indigenies.

Even when our morning coffee with Bob and Anna from next door turned into early afternoon, we weren't at all phased, in fact we were happy to be leaving in sunshine several hours later than we thought, after all we were only going to be travelling for a few hours, through four locks and we had all afternoon to do it.

Leaving Chalons-en-Champaign after a very pleasant stay indeed, the brilliant young lock keeper "reminded" us that we couldn't actually move after four thirty today as the locks will be closed for the election.   I am not quite sure what the deeper meaning of that no doubt symbolic closure is, but at a lesser level it did mean that on our first day of not making any plans, we had to change them.    Ironically though when we had the opportunity to change them again just a little later, because of that very same closure we could not.

We were not long out of our second lock of the day, with the clock ticking around four, the point of no return, when we could not but notice a pair of young ladies power walking with hiking poles and if I may say so, with a good deal of gusto to boot.  Because of recent and hitherto unpublished news about a certain predicament one of my knees, we've taken to noticing people walking with poles, and we duly noted that this pair had clearly had a bit of practice.   

They seemed to recognise the flag flying from our bow as they approached at about double our speed, managed to have themselves understood by speaking with an accent that I suspect was from somewhere near Melbourne, in the process telling us that they were walking to Rome.  Regretfully at the time we were in exactly the only circumstance that could have prevented us from giving them a lift back to Chalons, or for that matter even stopping for a proper chat.

Thanks to the miracle of the modern internet though, we now know who they are and what they are up to!  http://wheresnetia.wordpress.com/

Netia and Jill, sorry, all the best with the rest of the trip, if you get up early (say round ten), and go down to the port, knock on Bob and Anna's door, they are going your way!

Victims of a Natural Disaster Bignicourt-sur-Saulx to Chalons-en-Champagne

One way of instantly telling a "proper" live aboard boat from all the rest, is by the quantity and quality of potted plants growing aboard.  Even as I sit in the Port at Chalons-en-Champagne typing this, the small barge moored beside us has every herb known to man growing in pots on it's deck, some green vegetable that could be bok-choi (or maybe just odd shaped lettuce) and two whole rows of nasturtiums neatly setting off the front cabin.

We of course long to be "proper" but have been well and truly foiled by any half hearted attempt we have made thus far to grow stuff.   Our offerings last year began well enough; a clump of basil and some rosemary and thyne offset at each end of the self watering planter with some marigolds.   Maybe we aren't cut out for growing things in pots, or perhaps it was our frugality that was our undoing, having bought less than premium stock, offset with the clever use of some random bits of dirt which came from the ground somewhere in our travels.

Oh we ended up with a fine looking garden for a couple of months, because before returning home Sunny bequeathed us her geraniums and basil which she had loved and cared for for most of spring and half of summer, handing it to us in its prime.

This year was to be different.   We paid money for proper dirt, bought parsley and basil and chives for our planter as we passed Nancy a week ago, lovingly planted it as we rested in Toul, nurtured it all through all those other places, through the tunnel, and we finally had what looked like something, given time, we could be proud of.

Then, just as everything was starting to reach for the sky, (I'd tip pruned the basil, plucked some undesirable parsley, and combed the chives every day after making sure it was fed, )a black cloud rolled over Bignicourt-sur-Saulx.

In that black cloud was hail.  Crop flattening, basil killing, parsley destroying, chive chomping hail.  We farmers are a hardy lot, but it may take a bit to bounce back from this.

Hopefully, Sunny will see this, feel sorry for us and eventually track us down with another "proper" garden in hand!

Smooth Sailing -Fains-les-Sources to Bignicourt-sur-Sauix

Because of certain decisions taken a long time ago, in reality three days after we had made our plans (there's that impossible word again) and had actually bought our tickets to make them a reality, this first two weeks has by our standards in particular been something of an unseemly rush.  Today however, with another thirty kilometres passed, we are but twelve kilometres from our next milestone, we reach the end of the canal, and enter the Champagne region.

The decisions I refer to, among others, were the ones taken by the VNF, the body responsible for management of the inland waterways, to close the canal between Paris and where ever we were going to be at any given time until three weeks after we planned to be there.    The VNF is at once our nemesis and our guardian angel, sending chaps in blue and green uniforms and little white vans to ensure we are where we say we will be, and to fix any little glitch that may happen whilst negotiating locks.   

Because the locks are operated "automatically" which is a French term which means "manually, but motors do the work", glitches are not infrequent.   When they occur they are usually something to do with the telecommander, another French term which means "garage door remote control", and we all go through a well practiced routine.

Firstly we bark into the intercom at the lock, something which we think means we are stuck at lock "X".  Then they bark back something sounding like an announcement at a railway station.    Then, despite quite rightly conducting business in more or less the language of their country, a kindly voice always finishes off with "Someone is coming, OK?"

The little white van arrives, bearing a knight clad in  blue and green within minutes, or an hour or even two if the call is around lunch time, and the knight pretends that we have arrived from space.  With no understanding at all of the undoubted certainty that we have actually arrived at lock fifty-three in this particular chain, by travelling through every single lock before it, and by now we are actually reasonably good at pressing the only button on the telecommander, we get the lesson on how it works, then a lecture on how "terrible" the technology is, and then the switches are flicked manually from within his little control room and we are on our way.  After the third, or sometimes fourth lesson in four consecutive locks, the knight takes the errant instrument from us, tries it himself, mumbles something unpublishable and sends us on our merry way with a replacement, wishing us a great day as we go.

Four locks later of course, that kind of "automatic" system is replaced by another kind of "automatic" system, and we hand back our brand new and perfectly functioning telecommander with thanks!

Thursday's Washing Day Tronville-en-Barrois to Fains-les-Sources

When the sun comes out and we're on the road, we look for one thing only, a port with water and electricity.

Forget all you've heard about Monday for clothes and Thursday for sheets, there's a new formula that is strictly adhered to round these parts:

Water+Electricity+Sunshine=WashingDay

Fortunately, we had a place in mind which had the first two of the requisite elements, and by the time we'd dropped in to Bar le Duc to address a small administrative matter, (actually to our shame until this point we still had last year's photos in the "grand-children" frame), and we may as well top up with groceries, because you never know when we might find ourselves stranded a kilometre from anywhere that sells food, the latter of the elements had appeared with some gusto.

Barely an hour later we were settled in our little gunk hole in Fains-les-Source with the washing machine humming happily in the fore cabin, the owner of the machine humming happily in the galley baking a banana cake, while the other of us was humming at the prospect of devouring it at some later point in the evening, all the while topping up the water and eventually (after he had plucked up significant quantities of courage) enquiring as to why, after all the days we have spent searching for sunshine, when it finally arrived, was the drying rack placed in the shadow of an electric light pole.

Motoring! -Demange-aux-Eaux to Ligny-en-Barrois

Some days were meant for travel, and whether this was one of them or not, travel we did.

I'm not sure how the sky knew that the holiday was over, but it returned to its more customary 2012 chilly  grey uniform for the duration of the day, which seemed to match much of the forest we were travelling through, still completely denuded of it's summer or even spring clothing.   Thankfully the rain merely threatened us all day, and conditions were nowhere near as bleak as they appeared.

Twenty-four kilometres and twenty-seven locks we ticked off in the course of the day, as we poked along, and lest anyone laugh and suggest that we are not really intent on travelling quickly after all, may I remind one and all that last year we travelled this exact same route.

Twice.

And each time it took us exactly five days to do what we have done today.  

What is it, that drives us so madly one may ask? It's just that in three week's time, Mr Five and the Big E will be in Paris (with their parents) and we MUST be there!  

Stuck in the middle of nowhere! - Demange-aux-Eaux

Bummer!

So here we are, stuck in the middle of nowhere for the entire day, France's national holiday, how sad to be us.

The silence is deafening, truly deafening, not a creature is stirring not even a mouse, and that's the way it's been all day except for the times when people were out and about heading off somewhere to lunch, and a few hours later walking off their lunches beside the waterway.

What a glorious day it's been!

I hasten to add that our day was not all lying around in the sunshine though. We did cycle through the fields for a dozen or so kilometres, poking around a couple of nearby villages, and in the latter stages of the day even strolled along the water's edge for a time, gathering snippets of local knowledge one syllable at a time.

Ah well, tomorrow it's nose back to the grindstone.