Visitors

We have just farewelled my brother, Mark, and his partner, Jocelyn, our first visitors on Erewhon, albeit for the second time. They have been touring France, Italy and Spain since mid-April and had spent a few days with us in the port at St Jean de Losne before we were on the move. They have just spent another week with us - this time on the Canal de Bourgogne between Montbard and Tonnerre.

Because of the nearness of the railway station to the canal, we had arranged to meet them in Montbard on the 2nd of July. We arrived a day early so we could do washing and a general tidy-up, as well as get supplies on board before they joined us. We got the washing done and dropped into the Tourist Information Office to get a map of the town and information about supermarkets and internet connections, only to find Mark and Jocelyn coming out to meet us! They’d also arrived a day early and had been getting information about hotels because the nearby Hotel de la Gare didn’t open until late in the afternoon… most fortuitous as they were able to swap a hotel room for the much cheaper option of a bed on the boat.

We only stayed the one night in Montbard - partly because of the stated mooring costs (8 euros a night for a 2-person boat; 15 euros for a larger one) which would have been the most expensive so far, except that no-one ever came to collect it, partly because of the grain depot next to the port, which operated noisily and dustily at all hours of the day and evening, and partly because of the proximity to the railway lines, which was an advantage for the pick-up but not when it came to sleeping! While Mark and Jocelyn had a recovery and email catch-up day, Jeanette and I cycled the 6km each way to the magnificent Abbey at Fontenay, a very-well restored 12th century Cistercian monastery, which has UNESCO World Heritage status. Both the ride and the visit were fabulous.

During the next week, I think Mark and Jocelyn got a pretty good taste of different aspects of life on the canal. We experienced almost the full range of weather, sometimes within the space of one day, from blazing heat and humidity, through spectacular thunderstorms, wind and rain, to gentle overcast and/or sunny times. (The photos below were taken one evening over the course of just 90 minutes). We had one full day when we didn’t navigate because of the rain but we covered a total of about 60 km in the week, which seems about average based on our limited experience. They met a wide range of lockkeepers from the aging Dutchman selling the most fabulous jam imaginable (how we wish we’d bought more than one jar!) to the ditziest pair of young girls wearing clothing and hair that looked in danger of getting tangled in the lock mechanisms at any moment. We walked and cycled through a variety of villages - small and smaller - each with its own church and usually a chateau within spitting distance as well. We sampled the wares of many a bakery, Mark having made it his own personal mission to find fresh bread for us each morning (and preferably good stuff as well!) and, despite dire warnings from several boaties about the lack of places to buy groceries, found enough to keep us fed and watered for the week without any difficulty, although we did probably push the fridge to the limit of its capacity at times.

It has been a joy for us to have “crew” on the boat. Mark learned the ropes (literally) and mastered the different parts of assisting with the operation of the locks, which made coming into moorings much easier and ensured a speedier transition through those locks with only one person on duty. It also tends to ensure a good reception from the lockkeepers as it results in quite a bit less work for them. Jocelyn took over galley duties for most of the time, which meant that we had the luxury of stopping navigating at lunchtime and sitting straight down to a beautifully prepared meal. Their shopping expeditions also brought more variety into our eating and drinking as they brought back their discoveries to share with us - some of those will become part of our standard stocks from now on.

They left us yesterday to travel by train via Dijon to Naples and Rome (and then home by the end of next week). It has taken us almost exactly 4 weeks to travel by canal from Dijon to Tonnerre. The return trip was to have taken Mark and Jocelyn exactly an hour yesterday. Little wonder then, that our sense of time, space and pace is changing - and I already sense a strong resistance to changing back to what is considered the norms.

Catherine