Colours Champigneulles to Einville au Jard - 29 August

The leaves seem to have become muted of late, blending with their backgrounds, not their cheery selves.   Like teenagers who are out of sorts it's just a phase they are going through, and they will change soon enough, and bring a carpet of red and gold to the roads and waterways; reward for their unhappiness perhaps.

Its as though they know that we are in the process of heading for home,  the colours of our surroundings as subdued as our moods really, not sombre, but the memories of summer are already fading and there are new colours for us too, just around the bend.

We always enjoy our last days afloat for the year in a different way to the others, willing as we always do for them to pass more slowly, making the most of what time we have left.   We are in very familiar territory now of course.  It's like driving down our own driveway.  As we pass them we note summer's progress on houses that we have watched under construction for years, animals that have grown older or which have disappeared from the paddocks in which they usually reside.  

It's a comfortable familiarity, although we did note that the children who are often at the Einville lock selling mirabelle tarts were missing this year, and had a sudden urge to contact others with whom we'd shared the mirabelle experience in the past.

We need not have worried though, as dusk settled a proud father accompanying his daughter on her rounds of the boats in the port knocked quietly on our window.   Desert had arrived with the same sublime sense of timing as the change of colours in the trees.

Lights Nancy to Champigneulles - 28 August

Nancy to Champignuelles 28 August

When there is a light at the end of the tunnel, one has to be absolutely certain before one continues along it lest it turns out the be the headlight of a train coming the other way.

Therefore just because the weather looked as though it was becoming a little better than it had been didn't mean that any washing should be done, and the forecast of sunshine in the coming days made it much more sensible to wait at any rate.

We busied ourselves none the less, making lists and thinking about all that needed to be done to ready the boat for winter and decided that a visit to the hardware store was probably in order to stock up on the bits and pieces we'd need.   This as it turned out, was exactly what Ron had planned and there is a giant of a store just a few kilometres down the canal in the direction they were intending to travel today, and equally exactly in the opposite direction to the one we were intending to travel, but none the less, we found ourselves perhaps for the last time this year, cruising in company again.

We had planned one last visit to the lights in the square tonight, but of course as we have noted many times "planning" and "cruising" are mutually exclusive terms, and when the time came we were several kilometres downstream and in the middle of yet another farewell dinner aboard "Tiara", perhaps our fifth sixth this year had we been counting.

With our holds full of hardware, cameras full of photographs and heads full of tales of a cruising paths crossed many times in the past months, it seemed too soon to reminisce, but we did anyway and made do with photographs of the lights that we'd taken earlier.

Bad Press Nancy - 27 August

We were a bit hang-dog for part of the day.

We'd discovered a blog published by one of our countrymen which was quite disparaging of among others, the very folk with whom we had had such an enjoyable time the previous evening, and whose talents and zest for life in our eyes seem to have no limits.  It seems that for some, travel is something that should always provide an experience that is akin to being at home, and any variance from their accepted norm is some sort of threat to their obviously well structured lives.  For a time I was going to rage, rage, and not go gently into the good night, but Stephane would have none of that I knew, so the only thing to do in the fullness of time seemed to be to go to lunch.

Ron and Robin are never backward in agreeing that such a proposal is a splendid thing, so in gloomily recovering weather, but not quite good enough to wash the sheets, we set off into the Old Town to find a suitable venue.

It's amazing what a plate of Toulouse sausage and mashed potato can do for one's spirits, particularly when it's followed by some sort of Apple dessert from Normandy and then a little later by a nap.

It is a dog's life after all!

Wet, not miserable Nancy - 26 August

We are beginning to think that the rain is with us for a rather lengthy stay once again, but as the saying goes all things must come to an end eventually, and rain or not the gang of three had to press on.  

"To Paris" they chorused as Graham turned the car out of the port and into the morning traffic, doubtless not giving a passing thought to those they'd left behind, rattling around in an empty boat, occasionally peering out wistfully into the wetness for signs of approaching company.

But we were doing our absolute best to avoid missing them, so quickly took up a long-standing invitation to visit Stephane's barge where we spent a happy afternoon pouring over a small sample of his amazing photographic work, watching mystified as his photographic centrepiece a barely coloured photograph stood before us, apparently breathing.  

Then, lest we should suffer withdrawals in the absence of a crowd we thought we should introduce him to Ron and Robin and even then the five of us weren't equal to having one May aboard, so we our other neighbour Jean-B in as well for a long and productive cultural exchange!

Road Trip! Nancy-Metz-Lagarde-Nancy 25 August

Nothing says "Lets overcome cabin fever" on a drizzly day more than a road trip, and it wasn't terribly difficult to devise an entirely suitable circuit, which would take us home to Lagarde for Sunday lunch at Restaurant PK209, dessert in downtown Metz and back to Nancy in time for tea with Ron and Robin who had very conveniently arrived a few days before we did and held the adjoining spot so we could be neighbours not for the first time this year.

The plan went swimmingly until it was time to take leave of the restaurant, and May, bless her asked if would be kind enough to ask the waiter if she could buy two of the little pirate decorations that she had noted were accompanying children's sundaes.   The French language holds few mysteries for us now, apart from the one big one about how on earth one goes about communicating in it, we are very comfortable with it.

So I rose to the occasion, and believe that for the first time I may even have dropped a verb into the sentence, although it may not have actually been a useful one if the puzzled look on the waiter's face is to be used as a gauge.   Oh to heck with it I thought, and covered one eye, madly waving my make-believe sword under his nose while shouting "AArrrrh, Arrr!"

I suspect it's a sad reflection on my language skills, that he understood perfectly and gave the toys to us presumably in recognition of my performance.   He must have phoned Metz as well because when we arrived there was a parade with bands and clowns and floral floats presumably in our honour, or was it part of the Mirabelle festival, we couldn't be sure.  

We couldn't leave Metz without dessert of course, although it didn't come with pirates, nor popping into the cathedral just to remind ourselves that people in this country have been been apparently speaking to one another with no difficulty for thousands of years.  Surely one can't bluff and mime one's way through the construction of an entire cathedral?

Just Desserts Nancy 24 August

The common sense card is not one that I am particularly used to playing, some might argue that I rarely do, but with five aboard, drizzle and fogged up windows outside, and more to come, it really made no sense to leave our snug little berth a short tram ride from the heart of Nancy.

It was a short tram ride after dinner last night that took us to Place Stanislas in time for the evening light projections, and to take advantage of Graham's kind offer to buy dessert and coffee for the lot of us.   It may have been some sort of subconscious thing with someone else footing the bill that we didn't object when the others moved to sit at the most expensive corner of the square, or it may have been that it just looked like a really nice place to sit.

Whatever the case, we had our usual struggle with language, failing entirely to order a weak black coffee for Jill, and failing entirely to obtain a dessert menu even though we clearly knew what we meant.    Actually the waiter did eventually return without a menu, but with news which he imparted after a significant and terribly meaningful pause, regretting that the chef had some problems with deliveries this morning and there is no dessert menu this evening and if we all would like to have the same thing he would make something for us anyway.

We had a quick show of hands, and after determining that the chef didn't actually know what he might make for us, but he is usually very good at this sort of thing, we decided to proceed, and began our wait.

Eventually the extraordinary outpouring of chef's emotion was placed before us, without description, but with every change of colour came a subtle change of flavour, incredibly, each one complimenting the other, like snipers aiming at our tastebuds rather than launching a full-on artillery assault.

 Actually when the bill eventually arrived, Graham changed colour too, grateful I suspect that he had already paid for his return airfares.

Lights Liverdun to Nancy - 23 August

Liverdun in cruising yacht parlance is a little gunk-hole, tucked in a tiny inlet off the Moselle River, full of weed and ducks and a few swans and not much else, with overhanging trees and steep hills and cliffs providing a backdrop to the mooring, and to set it all off an ancient village is perched on the top of them.

There is room for two or perhaps three boats against the little wharf, and it's the perfect place to sit in the still of the night over a long dinner with a bunch of friends, of say, cassoulet and fresh baguette.  Disturbingly though, the algae in the clear water is so close to the surface that anything thrown to the fish just sits a few inches below the water and stares up at the thrower.

I suppose it's just as well then that the river is so amazingly still for much of the time.  Its mirrored surface reflects anything, hiding said morsels from view until eventually the catfish have a chance to clean them up.

This was a day that began with a light show as the rising sun created stunning reflections as we motored down the river, and ended with the one that no visitor to Nancy should miss, the illuminations in Place Stanislas which don't begin until late into the evening.