A Convention Mantoche to Gray

Every Tuesday during the months of July and August the Tourist Information Office in Gray organises a guided walking tour of the city's historical sites followed by a tasting of a large sample of the many products produced in the region.

That of course stands to reason, because today is Wednesday which by my calculations means that Tuesday and all of city walking and food sampling happened approximately yesterday.

Last year when we travelled through it, Gray was to put it mildly, grey except in the Tourist Information Office, which coloured our impression to such an extent that we vowed to return.  Earlier this year it was grey also, but with a very large dash of water,  and our return was foiled at that time too.

Today when we told the young lady behind the counter our tale of woe, she sparkled and replied: "You must be from the boat 'Joyeux'!"  Our reputation precedes us it would seem, or at least emails from conspiring friends do.  She told us there could be no food, but none the less if we would like ti she would arrange an English speaking guide to take us on our own tour tomorrow if we liked.

Ron and Robin would be here by then, and Mike and June had breezed into harbour as well and we had checked that it was OK to bring some Kiwis as well, so with tomorrow taken care of we only had to decide under which of Karen and Adrian's umbrella we take refuge from the heat.

Having Fun Lamarche-sur-Saône to Mantoche

Sometimes we pinch ourselves when we think about what we are doing, to make sure that we are not dreaming, to remind ourselves any dream is achievable if there is a will.

Every now and then, someone will burble past to demonstrate that with almost no budget, just a little ingenuity and an outboard motor, anyone can cruise the canals.   Last year it was an elderly German travelling in a barely two metre rubber duck with camping gear who captured our imagination.

This year, a small Swiss family motored past in what amounted to a two man tent on a few packing cases powered by an outboard.  Being Swiss they had all of the necessary safety equipment on board of course, and were well equipped for all conditions they were likely to encounter, even drought I suspect. They would never be without a conversations starter we thought.

Just after they passed we were waiting in a lock chatting about all that, just quietly between ourselves while a small boat settled itself in behind, discussing the probability that it's occupants would have to work for their conversation as we do, when we heard a shout from behind:  "Jo!  Peter!"

How on earth, out of all the locks in France, did Karen and Adrian choose to be in the one we occupied at the same time?

There goes our tranquility for the rest of this week!

Cruising Again St Jean de Losne to Lamarche-sur-Saône

After a few weeks of frantic(ish) dashing down the Doubs, we are back in cruising mode, which is code for we didn't really have to leave in the drizzle, but as the others departed the sparkle seemed to mysteriously wash off St Jean for the time being at least so we began our journey north ironically into even more canal use restrictions, this time due to water shortages.

Coincidentally it is almost exactly a year since we last followed this route, and it will be interesting I think, to compare our notes along the way from then.

There is an ease or even a confidence perhaps about the way we go about our travels now perhaps even more than just a year ago. Familiarity has no doubt diminished our sense of discovery a little as we revisit places, but I wonder if as we are starting to take things in our stride whether we have begun to overlook some of the small details that a year or two again would have provided a source of endless fascination, or whether we we still seeing things as we did then?

Perhaps it is that communication is easier, or that even though we are travelling alone we are rarely without company with whom to share our day's adventures

We think we are travelling alone again, but as if to show that we never are, this evening we shared those very thoughts over snacks with a family from Switzerland who stopped behind us.

Lunch again St Jean de Losne

Those fringed parasols that have been springing up out of balconies all over the place have finally met their match.

While the drought may not have broken, there was sufficient wind and rain overnight to ensure that few of them will have survived.  We have, however but decided that since we'd already overstayed the twenty minutes we had planned, that there would be little point in heading into the bleak just for the sake of it.  Besides they in the boat in front of us and in the barge behind as well looked as though they could do with a good feed.

Apparently.

So instead of cruising into the wind and rain we remained snug indoors all day catching up variously on tales from America or the UK, and generally agreeing that we weren't particularly looking forward to the rain stopping and the thought of moving on.

Twenty minutes in St Jean Choissey to St Jean de Losne

I am not sure that it's ironic or quite what it is that given the variables that have brought us back to St Jean de Losne it is almost exactly a year since we were here, ready for the long haul north, hoping that there would be no break in the system to thwart our plans.

This year there are breaks all over the place.  The floods that closed everything earlier have given way to drought now, water shortages making navigation slow on some of our route, uncertain even.   But there is rain coming tomorrow, but we'd be on our way by then we thought.

Twenty minutes is all it would take in St Jean we thought, to refill our fuel tanks and buy a couple of parts at the chandlery.  No need to stay we thought, best to be on our way before the storms arrive.

But we ran into Mike and Robin as we went about our business, and catching up takes time, and the wind was starting to increase to uncomfortable levels and the nice people who had allowed us to moor beside them in what had been Ken and Rhonda's barge were happy for us to stay, encouraging even, so the night wore on and twenty minutes became longer.

The onset of the drought. Ranchot to Choissey

Even in the early morning the sun was making its intentions for the day quite clear.  The colour of the vegetation seemed to change before our eyes as the sun soared, crisping everything in it's wake.  

We forced ourselves to stop for a walk around Dole but the whole town seemed lethargic, even for a Friday afternoon and given that is was well past lunchtime and it was difficult to muster any enthusiasm for any activity except perhaps for sitting in the shade with an icy drink in our hand.

Suitably enthused we set off once again in the boat in search of shade and said beverage, arriving in Choissey just as the trees near the mooring began to provide their late afternoon dapple.

Tomorrow apparently it will rain, or if it doesn't then it will look as though it is going to.

Either way there will be respite.  It's been a strange summer, as though there is nought but weather to talk about, if one ignore the outages on the canals, but they have been mostly the result of flood or now the is news of drought in the canals ahead.

Seeking shade Besançon to Ranchot

The heat spell is turning into a wave really.  Day after day of temperatures in the high thirties make for unpleasant afternoons even on the water, so we are continuing our pattern of getting underway early, finding a spot for lunch in the shade of a tree, preferably beside a weir or barrage where the clear water babbling in the background will at least make us think it is a little cooler.

When we arrived in Beasançon yesterday we'd hit the magic forty number on board, so we sought refuge in the deeply shaded chasms of the city.   One of us, for reasons that are never clear to the other had decided it was time to have her hair "tidied up".

It's hard to describe this process other than to say it involves walking into a hair dressing salon, preferably one with no customers in it and a sign on the door assuring us that it is air conditioned within, while making a movement with one's index and middle fingers approximating the action of a pair of scissors, at the same time raising one's eyebrows in enquiry.

This invariably leads to an enthusiastic and uncanny understanding of what is required and an invitation to sit in front of a mirror,  followed by an offer of a seat for the monsieur for the next maybe thirty minutes.  The latter offer is just as invariably declined politely in favour of a wander round town with an ice-cream in hand while he awaits there-emergence of his spouse who he knows will be puffing up her hair with one hand while debating with herself whether the cut was satisfactory or not.

It always is.