Jousting Sticks - Toul

This morning more than half an hour before lock operating hours, we watched bemused and amused as the huge cruiser a few pens away from us, was manhandled silently, no, stealthily out and into the channel before starting its engine thereby notifying the rest of us of its intent to be first into the lock queue.  More amusing or amazing really was the angst that showed in the body language of the couple opposite as they were mid casting-off at the time, and would now be relegated to the second lock-load, all of ten minutes later.  

One of the highlights of staying in Toul is the fight to leave the harbour at exactly nine each morning.   The competition is always fierce, as if there is a prize for being the first in the queue.  We’ve even witnessed verbal if not physical clashes as each successive passage of the lock brings more boats jousting to be next down and onto the river.   The stupidity of it all is that an hour or so later, they will be held, bunched together at the first large commercial lock which will easily contain them all, waiting for those who left an hour later as well.  Unaware of that, the morning air is often filled with the sort of tension one feels before a huge sporting event involving national pride and large sums of money. 

Is it therefore a deliberate irony on the part of the harbour management, that the annual round of the national water jousting championships are held in the very approach to that very same lock?   Perhaps it is to give those who have just arrived a preview of the morning’s tussle.

Whatever the case, if one had a spare set of jousting sticks for sale, one could probably clean up if one brought them to Toul at this time of year.

One more round of goodbyes -Toul

“This time we really mean it… OK then, we’ll stay one more day perhaps!”.. and so it goes.   Günter and Lexa and Jürgen and Ele were definitely going to leave today, the former first thing, the latter after their guests arrived, but still afraid to break the magic of the last ten days or so we stuck together for just one more day, after which they promised, they really would leave.

We on the other hand, would not.

We have an appointment with Mr Perkin’s doctor on Monday, and as is usually the case there is no shortage of ways to occupy one’s time in Toul, so we shall carry on with a stiff upper lip, learn to travel alone once more, and practice speaking English without involuntarily reverting to Germanic grammar.

Mixed Emotions - Pagny-sur-Meuse to Toul

We were all six of us experiencing some sort of emotion that verged on sadness but wasn’t quite, at the prospect of spending our last day travelling together, so we decided to prolong it as best we could by not departing before the locks were open for business.   In fact, despite a little discomfort being felt by some of our companions, we waited until all of the other boats had left the mooring.    

Then we had a cup of coffee, savouring each others’ company, before setting off together one last time down the  gloriously wild blue waterway yonder.  In retrospect there had been no need to make excuses, as when the time finally came to get underway, “Ele” refused to do so.

Mr Perkins, bless him, despite his filthy habits has continued to amaze all with his smoothness and dare we say it, smoke-free running.   Never the less he has provided us with the experience to find many faults, so armed with a few years’ experience in keeping his good self ticking over, and a few by now well-worn but beginning-to-go-rusty tools, it didn’t take too long to have us all underway again. 

It was interesting to witness in others the uncertainty which we have felt only too well during those few moments it took to find the problem.  As we have noted many times in the past though, being broken down for a time in the wilds of France would not be the worst thing that could happen in one’s life.

Trial Separation - Sauvoy to Pagny-sur-Meuse (and lunch in Void)

Some would say that we have been moving uncharacteristically quickly of late, “like a bunch of Germans on holiday” they may add, an expression that only those who have experienced being overtaken on a canal by someone trying to fit four months worth of travel into a few weeks annual leave would understand.   To the extent that we haven’t actually stayed put for a time of late that criticism would be fair, but there are some mitigating circumstances.

The heat for instance is still as unrelenting as our companions, but let it also be said that we have left our own little mark on them as well, by slowing our daily progress, scuttling from one shady spot to the next.  Today for instance our log shows that we were moving for two hours, covering almost nine kilometres in the process, although it doesn’t actually set out the reason that we were stationary for six hours in the middle of the day, which if one thinks about it is exactly the length of time it takes to enjoy a splendid lunch.  

While the rest of our contingent raced ahead to reserve a shady spot for us, we languished in Void with Paul and Carla, who had driven from Holland and rented a room nearby in order to ensure they didn’t miss us as we passed. Under the shade of the great awning of Restaurant Cugnot we celebrated and reminisced the afternoon away.   They rejoined us later in the evening too, and we sat at first in the shade of a tree and then of the earth itself, quietly talking the night away as well and we could have talked more we are sure but that will have to wait until the next time our paths cross.

We get so confused! -Naix-aux-Forges to Sauvoy

It may be something in the water that is the cause, and even though we don’t drink it, it seems that the particular stretch of canal we travelled today seems to bring out some sort of mental conniption in those with whom we are travelling.  The water is so clear, so tantalising that it often feels completely invisible, no doubt it casts some sort of spell on one as one travels above it.  It seems like only yesterday that as we passed these very trees debate was waged with our dear Canadian friends about the horticultural origins of the crop pictured. It’s obvious now that it’s colza or rapeseed, dry and ready for harvest but in full flower it’s understandable that it could be mistaken for something else one imagines.

But this is about today, not then, and today it was Ele’s turn.  As she opened her mouth to speak to some tourists from her homeland who were watching the proceedings at a lock, the words came out in French.  Embarrassed, she apologised in English, exclaiming that she’d forgotten how to speak her own language!

We of course have been marvelling at her ability to maintain sufficient concentration over the past week, to seemingly switch between languages so effortlessly.  Today though the effort took it’s toll.

A few minutes after her confusion, she turned to converse with the after-crew on the good ship “Joyeux” as has been their custom for the past sixty locks or so, and found herself speaking albeit accidentally, once again in German,   “It’s come back!” she exclaimed, at once surprised and relieved.

In the company of bad people - Ligny-en-Barrois to Naix-aux-Forges

We have been travelling with Jürgen and Ele for long enough now to understand their innermost workings.   

The fact that they are not French does make this a little easier it must be said. For instance when Jürgen wandered off from the lock mid-cycle, through the bushes and into the paddock opposite leaving the aft end of his boat unattended, we could be fairly certain it wasn’t to answer a call of nature.  Instead, having no doubt calculated the precise factor of the  failure rate anticipated in the sunflower crop opposite, he would have known that the farmer would willingly spare two specimens. Who knows, perhaps he'd phoned through first to ask permission.  In any case he wandered down the front row of the things until he found two of the flawless variety and promptly removed them, presumably for research purposes, no doubt to be inspected in the same laboratory that researches Minky whale flesh.

The number of samples obtained was apparently carefully calculated.  One was presented to Ele who instantly forgot her concern of only seconds earlier when she noticed his absence on the after lines and called rather loudly with just the merest hint of panic: “Jürgen, DO YOUR JOB” a reference no doubt to her observation that the rear of their boat was at this point banging helplessly agains the side of the lock.   

The other in a swoop of gallantry, surely not bribery, found its way into the hands of our own good Captain, who immediately swooned, placed it in a vase, and confided that it probably wasn’t really stealing if we just took one. 

Unimpressed, and not at all wishing that it was me who had thought of it first, I could only imagine how much more beautiful this photograph would have been had it not been sullied by the absence of those flowers.

When good gnomes go bad - Bar-le-Duc to Ligny-en-Barrois

Last year when we came this way, we came across some garden decoration, and took note of a couple of pointers indicating a possible direction for our own place on our return from our travels.  

Purely in the interests of research you understand, I took photographs from as many angles as a camera hand held on a gently bucking boat ascending a lock would allow,  in order to record a certain brazen little gnomette hussy, baring her all for our passing pleasure.    Well it’s 2015 now, and it appears that scantily clad gnomes are very much last years’ thing.  While my post at the time was headed “Ignomeny”, a clever little pun I thought at the time, I could not have foreseen exactly how ignominious her demise would be, nor how shabbily her grubby little mate would turn out to be.

We shouldn’t really pass judgement on their lack of underwear though.  Had we not managed to squeak in a load of washing before departure time this morning we could very well have been clad similarly.  

Instead, here we are in Ligny appropriately layered, neither of us upended in the bin, a further twelve kilometres upstream and hastily erasing last years landscape concepts.