Sunday, 31 August

We have had a lot of wonderful days on the canals this summer and, perhaps not surprisingly, after a while some of them start to merge with others. This morning (31 August) was, however, one right out of the bag. We have been enjoying what may be our most settled spell of weather so far this summer - this is the fifth day of hot, sunny weather on the trot (but thunder storms are once again forecast for later on today). As has been the pattern for the last few days, the day began with mist on the canal and a heavy dew on the boat. We were up and navigating relatively early, leaving our mooring around 9am. There’s no point being on the water sooner as the lockkeepers don’t start work until 9am and the days have hardly begun. For some reason (no doubt related to latitude, longitude and time zones), 9am in France IS actually earlier than 9am in NZ. It s not just a cultural thing as I once thought - the days themselves do not get underway until quite a lot later here. The sun seems to rise later and the early morning coolness takes longer to clear.

It was our last leg on the Canal Lateral a la Loire with just 10km and a single lock between us and the port at Digoin (no, I’d never heard of it either before we started reading canal guides). We set off in the last of the mist on yet another gloriously still morning. I’m sure that only those with recent experience of living in Wellington can truly appreciate the beauty of one windless day after another… The morning was cool but with the promise of heat later in the day and the canal moody with its mist and reflections. We were also both calm and relaxed: one lock in 10km covered today represents a real luxury and all the more so because the locks on this canal (even when locking up) have been more user-friendly than any others we’ve met. The positioning of the bollards seems to be standardised so we know what to expect when we arrive and can set ourselves (and our ropes) up accordingly; the lockkeepers have, without fail, been willing to assist with our ropes if we want them to and the locks themselves - whether through the actual mechanisms or through lockkeeper training - have provided us with a gentle ride up, even when on the rare occasion that we’ve had to share them with another boat. In some of the locks on the Nivernais the ride up was more akin to trying to hold onto a bucking horse!

So, a morning of “mist and mellow fruitfulness” and the canal all to ourselves as it meandered through the French countryside with the Loire river often in view alongside. It’s enough to make anyone want to sing… So sing, we did! We put the Great Tenors (Pavarotti and Domingo) on the tape deck, turned them up loud and sang our way through the countryside with them. Exhilarating stuff!

We didn’t know what to expect of the town of Digoin and its name somehow doesn’t promise much but the entry into the town by canal is a fabulous one. The lock is beside a tree-filled park and with its rise of four metres is the biggest that we’ve encountered on this canal. As you come up in the lock, the Pont-canal de Digoin comes into full view - the canal crosses the river, Loire, by means of a one-way bridge. Footpaths on the sides allow people access across and it is decorated with flower baskets. It is a weird and wonderful experience to cross a river on a canal bridge. This one is like the canal version of a grand avenue leading straight into the heart of town and into the biggest and busiest port we’ve encountered since we left St Jean de Losne. There’s another canal - the 55km Canal de Roanne a Digoin - which branches off here but we’ll leave that for another time. We had considered including it in this trip but, although we probably have time, we don’t want to have to rush and we need to allow ourselves some contingency time: there is always the chance that something might break down and it is possible that we may want to be back in St Jean a bit earlier than planned. Chris is returning to scatter Roger’s ashes on the Saone there and we’d like to be there for that.

Having arrived in port and found ourselves a mooring with electricity, J got on and did the washing while I cooked our Sunday lunch: roast chicken (a favourite) stuffed with leftovers of last night’s fried rice and accompanied by green beans (fresh from the market at Dompierre yesterday) and a creamy mushroom sauce… and a bottle of Cremant de Bourgogne (Burgundy bubbly) that we bought in Bailly a few weeks back. Dessert will be melon from Cavaillon, when we get around to eating it, which may be at dinner time.

Since I began writing this, the weather has broken and we’ve had one downpour complete with wind, thunder, lightning and hailstones. It’s possible there is more to come but we are still sitting in our togs and spending a very mellow afternoon doing gentle activities - reading, playing patience, dozing and writing. We’ll be in Digoin for a week as we meet our friends, Marlene and Margaret here next Sunday., so we are in no rush to get to know the town and we have a few more things to do on the boat. Perhaps a little more brown will disappear over the next few days or maybe we will finally find a way to stop one (or more) of the remaining leaks… And perhaps with the onset of September we’ll also have to face the reality of coming home and looking for work. CV writing and internet job-searching could also be on the agenda for the rest of the week… but I think for now, we’ll just relax and make the most of this last and lovely day of August.