The Roar of the Crowd Tonnerre

Of necessity things began buzzing dawn or something like that, with the boat full of hustle and bustle to get them all  off to London for the weekend.  We even took them to the train to make sure they got on.

Then we returned to blissful sunshine accompanied by a silence that was deafening.

The Big E wasn't carrying my boots or trying to find a better vantage point in some prohibited place.  

No one was asking why I was doing whatever it was each time I moved a millimetre. 

No "I love you" stares shot across the cabin when they thought we weren't looking, nor when they thought we were for that matter.

We'd forgotten what it was like to be still.   Alone and not moving.  So we washed and did a bit of cleaning and not much else.

I told the Australian bloke in the hire boat who moored behind us that we were going to be here for a week when he enquired.

"There are a lot better places to stay a week than here", he offered.

"Well we'll stay in those places for a week too", I replied.

Chill Flogny-la-Chapelle to Tonnerre

There's nothing like a bit of hard work to warm the cockles.  

That's what Mr Five thought at least, with temperatures well into single figures and rain that was a little chilly, even with gloves and hat he suffered badly at every lock, but there was no way he was going to let me try to open those gates alone.

Grateful for the help I was too, and I'm sure that's what got us the remaining half dozen kilometres or so to Tonnerre, where, tired from all this travel, we shall remain for a week we think.

We have bought their tickets and tomorrow, rain hail or shine, and the forecast says "shine", they will be off.

"Papa, why are you using the black lead today, aren't you afraid of elephants any more?" spoken by Mr  Five in an all knowing "I've got you now" sort of voice.

"No elephants round here, it's a bit cold for them. The black lead is for Rhinos, but I'll keep the orange one ready just in case it warms up a bit."  I replied to his wide-eyed self.

High Summer - 2012St-Florentin to Flogny-la-Chapelle

Two days from now the horde are due to leave for a weekend in London, so we really do need to give some consideration to getting close to a railway station by then.   Despite the cold and rain, we decided to push on, get another fifteen kilometres under the belt.   

As has become usual that meant that the only respite from the rain came when we weren't actually needed to be outside in a lock,  or anywhere near a playground, or wanting to go for a walk to find a sheep or a cheese factory.

Undaunted as those who are desperate to have a good time often are, we discovered that after the first five or six kilometres of our evening stroll some of us were warm enough to unzip our top layer jackets.   

I suspect this is just an acclimatisation programme so they won't be cold over the weekend, and while they are away, the sun will shine on our little boat.

I hope.

Elephants Brienon-sur-Armançon to St-Florentin

The journey to St-Florentin wasn't particularly taxing, although we did manage to scale one more lock than yesterday, with a tradeoff of one kilometre less distance travelled.

The small boys, starting to thaw after their week on an entire cruise liner have been surprisingly less taxing than we feared as well.   The Big E seems content to drag my boots around the boat to wherever I may be in the vague hope that I will don them and take him into the great outdoors, which does seem to happen with a good deal of regularity, while Mr Five just does what five year olds do best.  

He asks "Why?"

And that's exactly what he asked after our walk through the winding and windy streets of St-Florentin as he watched me plug in our mains electrical connection.

"To keep the elephants away," I replied matter of factly,"They'd make a terrible mess of the boat if they visited in the night"

"There aren't any elephants here, Papa."

"That's because I plug in the orange elephant cables every night."

The merest hint of blue. Migennes to Brienon-sur-Armançon

All we ever hear about whenever we engage any local person in conversation, is how terrible summer is.  Actually it's not at all terrible, it just hasn't arrived, but if we agree with whoever it is that is describing the horror of it all, we then get both barrels about what a shocking spring we've had to boot.

But there was a little patch of blue today, we kicked off back in cruising mode proper today.  Nine kilometres we thought would do it nicely, perhaps with two locks to round off the day.

Even with what seemed a battalion of small boys aboard, there seemed little point in leaving before our morning coffee, and by the time that had been done, well the locks were closed for lunch, so we thought it would be a jolly good idea to follow their lead.

Not too many people stay in  Brienon-sur-Armançon apparently, the main claim to fame of which, according to the guide books is that several attractive buildings survived the fires which ravaged the town in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but we found the smallest patch of blue sky there, and thought we'd sit under it for as long as it would allow.

Waiting for the return. Migennes

By the time the scruffy horde arrived it was eight at night, and they were a little bit fatigued after their marathon day from Marseilles to Migennes via Paris.  

We were a little on the less than bouncy side ourselves for reasons we couldn't really fathom, but which we thought had to do with having spent the day in the sun (or variously not) doing much of the scrubbing and cleaning work we haven't been able to do since April because of the state of the weather, or because we were too busy, or because there were too many people on board, or perhaps because we simply had many better things to do.   Even refuelling, meant ten trips to the service station which was not quite three hundred metres away, which of course meant not quite six kilometres of walking with the jerry can.

Migennes is the sort of place where finding better things to do is not a particularly simple task, it's a sort of "whistle stop on the highway" town, a place to travel through rather than visit.  One of the occupations of its citizens seems to involve studiously ignoring young persons of Mediterranean appearance hanging about in shadows or contrarily revving their strangely eastern European registered Porches to ensure we know they are about.     I suspect the particular noises we were hearing was a bit like listening to Greensleeves played endlessly by the ice cream van of old.  I also have some suspicions that the snow cones on offer didn't need refrigeration.

With the way the weather forecast is looking, nothing is going to need refrigeration for a day or two.

We leave the river Villeneuve-sur-Yonne to Migennes

We started the day just one more lock to negotiate before reaching civilised country once more, that place where nothing happens before nine, and no-one can be seen at lunch time.  Even the locks close for a snooze in the middle of the day.

Just one more.  We thought if we could time our run so that we  arrived at the second lock a little after nine, we'd be well on our way to a well earned lunch in yet another mediaeval city, and who knows, we could be tucked up on the canal by mid afternoon at worst.  

Our friend at the last lock of last evening, the one whose dogs took great joy in accompanying him as he walked to each end, responding to the merest tilt of his head, had made an appointment for us and assured us his colleague would have the next lock ready at quarter past eight.   That seemed like the perfect time to arrive, so we did, not a minute before, to find the lock far from ready.

Not only was it still filled with water, which can be a great inhibitor for those wanting to go up, but there was no sign of life to be found.   The door to the office was open, the doors and windows to the cottage were open, the workshop also open, was completely devoid of life-signs.    I'm not sure whether he saw me first or vice-versa, but a harried looking lock keeper poked his head out from behind a curtain and explained with some concern on his face that he was very sorry to have kept us, he was not hiding, but his cat had gone missing and it was a very fat cat and would not be very good on the road.

He emptied the lock while absenting himself from time to time, and we entered and secured ourselves at the exact time an elderly lady made some signals for him to come and to be quiet as he did.  He excused himself and tip-toed over to his vegetable garden.  With the joy that only a father looking at a sleeping child could know, he smiled at the cat curled up in his turnip patch, hiding in the sun.   Returning to us bursting with relief and to his astonishment that he discovered that he could suddenly speak English, and proceeded to do so as if he had until the lock filled to tell everything he knew.

Tonight we are back on the canal, at Migennes at the very top of the Canal de Bourgogne.  A few days ago battling wind and ships and current and a schedule that was very close to being far too optimistic,  perhaps we would have been happy to have the river behind us.  

Tonight it is fair to say, we are going to miss it.