Le “grand” depart

I am writing this post sitting in the boat in the beautiful port town of Dole. Erewhon did get put into the water last Friday, as we were hoping, although she didn’t do quite the usual amount of flying to get there. Normally, Guy picks the boat up from inside the compound with the crane and takes us over the fence and straight into the canal. It’s a heart-stopping experience as we watch our boat (which is also our home while we are here) fly at a height of at least seven or eight metres on its way to the water. This year, however, there were too many boats between the fence and the canal, so they lifted us onto a trailer and then took the trailer canal-side and popped us into the water from there. There was still a heart-stopping moment or two, though… between them Guy and his new assistant, Michel, didn’t quite get the balance right before lifting the boat into the air and it swung around a bit, nearly – but not quite - crashing with the boats on either side in the compound. Whew!

As always, it was (and still is) wonderful to be in the water. It’s where a boat is supposed to be and it feels right. There is a softness, a gentleness about it, which puts the expression “on the hard” into perspective.

Of the nine days since then, we spent four in St-Jean-de-Losne getting ready to leave and, more particularly, waiting for the weather to improve. It was cold and windy for days – not at all the sort of weather you want for navigating! We happily spent our time socializing and entertaining, provisioning the boat and making final preparations before leaving. We froze as we watched the fireworks that accompanied the annual “Blessing of the Fleet” ceremony at St-Jean but eschewed the reportedly boring ceremony itself on the Sunday in favour of a visit to the market at Chagny with Brian and Liz. That was a good decision. It’s a huge market with everything from bread, cheese, fruit and veges to clothes, linen and mattresses – and most things in between. We found a really good restaurant for lunch and then returned to SJL just in time to stow our purchases and watch NZ’s astonishing World Cup draw with Italy live on their boat.

With a favourable weather forecast for the remainder of the week, we decided to leave SJL on Tuesday, as indeed did Brian and Liz, although they will stay on the stretch of the Saone near SJL as the bad weather has so hampered their navigating plans that it was no longer worth them paying their VNF (navigation fees). That doesn’t actually stop them navigating but it does mean they don’t have the right to go though any locks. Fortunately, though, there is a good stretch of the Saone around SJL with some lovely mooring spots, so they will get some boating done. We left the marina together and then parted company some four kilometres up the Saone, where we came up onto the Rhone-Rhine Canal. This is the itinerary we talked about before we left NZ - it will take us north east towards Mulhouse in Alsace and up to the borders with Germany and Switzerland. We will then turn around and come back again – but not before venturing across the Swiss border to visit Basel and maybe also do some visiting in Germany.

We have quickly and happily found our navigating rhythm – very slow! If you look at a map, you’ll see that the distance between SJL and Dole is around 23km. It took us three full days to cover that distance with lovely stops at both Abergement-la-Ronce and Choisey (2 nights) along the way. The latter was fascinating – a beautiful, well-kept old village right beside the canal but when we went up to the top of the hill, out of sight of the canal, we found the great commercial “parks” on the outskirts of Dole. That’s the best of both worlds for us – calm, romantic views from the boat but easy access to a supermarket and every other kind of shopping imaginable. We found a fantastic bike shop and treated ourselves gel seats and panniers for our bikes: the former will make longer sight-seeing rides more enjoyable and the latter will make transporting our supermarket shopping – especially some of the heavier liquid items - much easier. J also liked the look of a bike that has a little electric motor on it. She swears she’s going to save her pennies and go back for that one day, when “normal” cycling gets too hard… The people in the shop couldn’t have been more helpful and we went away with a free brake adjustment and along with a lesson in how to do it ourselves in future. When you know nothing about bikes and boats to begin with, there is so much to learn… but we are learning more all the time.

We arrived in Dole yesterday and are moored in what must once have been the moat around the town. It’s a gorgeous place with water all around – a couple of canals as well as the river Doubs run along the base of the town. The port is overlooked by the church with its huge bell tower. We hear church and/or town hall bells marking the passing time nearly every day in nearly every place we moor. The bells of the church here are relatively gentle and more melodious than most. We’ve explored the old town and been to market this morning. We hooked up to water and electricity today for the first time since leaving SJL, so we’ve done the washing and will vacuum tomorrow morning. We’re expecting Christian for lunch and have found a lovely leg of NZ lamb to feed him…It will also feed us for the next two or three days as there won’t be room for anything else in our tiny fridge. We’re planning to leave here on Monday morning, weather permitting. It seems fine just now but we won’t know until we can connect to the internet to get a forecast, which will happen at the same time as we post this. To do that that, we’ll need to climb back up into the centre of the old town to the Tourist Information Office. We need to take advantage of the free connections while we are here or it may be another nine days before you hear anything from us.

We hope the rest of our journey is as straight forward as this has been so far. We also wish you a New Zealand winter that is not too harsh and hopefully even enjoyable from time to time.

Up in the air

Finally, a blog posting! It always takes us longer than we think it will to get to the stage of being able to write. It’s not that we don’t want to or that we don’t think about it (a lot), nor is it that there is any shortage of subject matter; it just always takes us a long time to get settled and into the right space to put some thoughts on paper.

It’s always a mission to get here. We work to the last minute in NZ to make sure we have as much money as possible under our belts for the summer ahead and then we spend the last couple of days packing and tidying up the house and garden (if the weather allows)… Then there is the trip itself. This year’s version: home – Wellington airport - Auckland airport (LOVE the walk from domestic to international!) – Sydney – Dubai – Paris, Charles de Gaulle – Hotel Mistral near the Gare de Lyon. One night in Paris gave us the chance to catch up with Jean-Marc and Alex for dinner, if not yet with our own bodies and minds. Then, the train to Dijon the following morning, lunch (and a siesta) at Christian’s place before the final leg to St-Jean-de-Losne (via a supermarket to stock up on the most important – and heaviest – items).

And so we arrive at our boat late on a Wednesday afternoon, completely knackered. No matter that we have been wonderfully looked after en route – from the start when Graeme dropped us off at the airport in Wellington to Christian’s care at the finish. We’re still utterly exhausted and looking forward to a long sleep…

But the boat has been packed up for the winter, which means that it is perched on blocks and accessible only by ladder, (almost) hermetically sealed with a big tarp over the top and insulating panels covering every window. Every drop of water that could possibly freeze and split something in the freezing temperatures of an inland French winter has been drained. All clothing and linen has been packed in plastic bags to keep from getting damp over the winter, the carpets have been rolled up and stored away in anticipation of the electrician and mechanic undertaking the requested work over the winter, and open hatches and displaced belongings motor bits show that the boat was winterised but not yet de-winterised. Humidity removing packs are throughout the boat, having done their job and converted their original solids into slimy liquid. To get the bed ready for that long sleep requires just about everything to be moved, found, unpacked (the suitcases go under the bed in the main cabin and it’s a mission to get them there but there’s no room for them anywhere else), put away, temporarily stored…and just as we were getting started, the rain did too, which meant doing all the above within the confines of the boat itself. It’s difficult to convey just what an effort these apparently minor tasks can take in such circumstances… and enough to say that we were eventually rewarded with the sleep we so desperately needed.

The following day was something of a struggle as well. David Blanquart, the head of the boatyard, confirmed that almost none of the work that we’d asked to have done over the winter had been done. The battery charger had been replaced and was now making a disturbingly persistent whining sound in the living area and one part of our engine that needed checking and possibly replacing was sitting forlornly in the corner of David’s office awaiting attention, its odd English dimensions apparently giving reason for scorn. We obviously weren’t going to get into the water very quickly and it seems only the most vital work will get done before we leave… a disappointment for us but, now in our third year of dealing with the French boatyards, hardly a surprise. Also disappointing from our perspective was the lack of familiar faces in the marina, although we could hardly be surprised at that with our arrival here so much later this year. This was also another day of cleaning and organizing – with added frustrations as there were quite a lot of things we couldn’t put back in place or weren’t worth cleaning properly until the de-winterising had been done and the mechanic had finished working on the motor (which is under the floor in our living room). When Guy did arrive late in the afternoon to reconnect the pipes so we could at least have running water, the result was water running in places we didn’t want it – leaking out of the hot water cylinder, the shower rose and taps, under the basin in the toilet and, at one stage, shooting spectacularly out of the connection to the water pump (fortunately below floor level and therefore straight into the bilge without too much mess). Guy fixed the first problem, time fixed the second (we now know that washers shrink and harden over the winter but come right after the water has been in them a while) and I fixed the rest… None of it was particularly serious but it can get to you when your resistance is already low. We’ve had days like this before and, although they aren’t easy, we know that you just need to get through them and that things often look up in the morning.

And indeed they did. If we’d have been on the water, you’d say that we found our sea-legs. I don’t know what expression you should use for living in a boat on blocks but we certainly did hit our rhythm the next day. We developed a plan to paint the decks, and had begun sanding by the end of the afternoon. We were reunited with our wonderful bikes and delighted in riding them again, and to our great joy, several old friends (Brian and Liz, Heather and Dave, Steve and Treena) showed up in the marina at the same time as we were making friends with our new neighbours, Jim and Nancy from the US and Phil, Cathy and Anthony from Clevedon. To add to the joys of the day, Brian and Liz brought with them our new, portable twin tub washing machine!!! The Wonder Washer will, no doubt, do service to someone else…but Thomas (the wondrous clothes spinner) seems to be on his last legs and may be put to rest here. A good and faithful servant.

Incredibly, that was nearly a week ago. Since then we have finished sanding and filling the decks, and painted everything except the cockpit, which is quite tricky anyway as it is our main access to the boat but made more difficult by not knowing when a mechanic might turn up because he would certainly want to be working in exactly the place where we’d be painting, or had just painted…and they are not known for their careful movements. Anyway, what has been done looks great and it’s been a miracle of timing through uncertain weather and frequent but unpredictable showers of rain (and the occasional downpour). The rest can be done when we’re on the water. We’ve been out for dinner or drinks most nights, watched a couple of World Cup matches, including NZ’s draw with Slovakia, been to the book swap and replenished our supplies. We’ve stocked the cellar (the 18 bottles of wine costing well under NZ$100 in total) and the kitchen… and we are still waiting for the work to be done on the motor.

When I started writing this post, we were waiting for news of some special, difficult-to-source (read “expensive”) screws, which had been ordered and knew nothing beyond that. On a trip to the toilet block in the driving rain a little while ago, I called in to the office in the hope of an update. Good news - not only have the screws arrived but they’d like to put us in the water on Friday morning – which means there is now a nominal deadline for the work to be done… Fingers crossed that nothing urgent comes up to distract them from that plan – and that Friday will see our boat up in the air (on its way to the water) rather than us being in that situation, as we have been until now!!

Christmas Eve (24 December here!)

…and the sun is shining. This is worth mentioning because we have seen so little of it since we arrived home at Labour Weekend, two months ago to the day. Our plans for an eternal summer have so far been thwarted by the reluctance of summer to show its face in Wellington, although this doesn’t seem to be true for other parts of the country. Since our return, we’ve put up with maximum daily temperatures in the mid-teens and lots of wind, cloud and rain. When we have had sunshine, it has so often been accompanied by a southerly “breeze” – the southern hemisphere equivalent of the North wind.

So, what have we been doing in the two months since our return? We have both found work. J is back at the Department of Corrections coordinating the volunteers in the three Wellington prisons – a job she left at the end of March 2008. She contacted her previous manager about a possible reference for another job she was applying for and ended up being offered a three-month contract in her old job as the Department is restructuring and not able to make any permanent appointments. That situation hasn’t changed, so it’s not impossible that the work will continue beyond the end of her current contract. We’re not holding our breath, however.

C has taken on what is referred to as a “portfolio” of work – that means a whole series of part-time and/or short-term positions, all of them related to language teaching in some way. She’s a part-time languages adviser to schools; part-time lecturer in language teacher education and occasional contractor to critique resources for learning languages in NZ schools. In January, while the rest of the country is on summer holidays, she’ll be trying to manage all of these at once. Some serious juggling will be required, especially as the first week of university teaching coincides with a very full week of language material critiquing… still the thought of the next summer in France will see her through! We are lucky to have found the work so easily.

Speaking of next summer in France – we have booked our tickets to leave here on June 7 and will leave Paris on October 7 to come home. That’s later and shorter than we would ideally like but made necessary by the demands of one of C’s jobs. Still, it’s that same job that means we can afford to travel again, so we’re not really complaining. Better 4 months on the boat than none at all!!!

As the winter weather really starts to bite in the Northern Hemisphere, we are happy to NOT be on our boat, despite cheerful missives from other friends who still are on theirs. We are enjoying being in our own home again and have planted our little vegetable garden. We’re just about to start eating the lettuces and silver beet but the cabbages, broccoli, capsicums, beans and tomatoes are a few weeks away yet. They are, however, flourishing and so the garden is full of potential. The flower garden that we created at the front of the house last year now looks utterly established, if not slightly overgrown – it seems incredible to be cutting things back already. We still have lots of work to do on the other flower beds but all in good time…

We haven’t yet done anything to the inside of the house this year but that is about to change as well. We’ve decided that we can afford to make some changes in the kitchen, which will result in the addition of a dishwasher (yay!!!), modernisation of all the cupboard doors and the heightening of the benches - the previous owner was tiny and the bench height is about 10cm below the norm. Even J finds it too low, so you can imagine how C struggles – and she is the one who really likes to cook! Work on installing the new kitchen will start in the New Year. Much of the painting will need to be done first. We’ll do the laundry at the same time and that will be the last of the 80s wallpaper hidden forever. Only the gold/mustard-coloured floor coverings from the same era will then need attending to…but not before the summer of 2010/2011 and then only if we find work again.

The friend and former colleague whose extended leave has created work for C has also kindly left us her car to use. This is most fortunate as C works in Karori, about 20km (a train and a bus ride) away in one direction and J works at Rimutaka, about 20km (train + 20 mins walk) in the other direction. We managed with public transport options for a couple of weeks but having the extra car really is a god-send!

We have failed miserably in some of our preparations for Christmas this year. Hardly anyone has received a Xmas card from us and some presents will remain under the tree until well after Xmas because we didn’t have them bought and wrapped before their recipients took off for the summer holidays. Still, we’ve succeeded in getting some others off in time and we have got suitable food (and drink!) in store. Our tree is up and looking beautiful – mostly because we had an early Xmas dinner a couple of weeks ago with friends who’d be elsewhere on the day. Those of you from the Northern Hemisphere probably don’t realise the extent to which the logistical arrangements for summer holidays and Xmas can interfere with one another in this part of the world.

Unlike many people, we have no set routine for Christmas; we just go with the flow… Tonight we are celebrating with our neighbours across the road. C’s made a summer pudding, which looks gorgeous! (Berries are a feature of Xmas desserts here – better than a traditional Xmas pud in this season.) Tomorrow, we’ll have a late and luxurious breakfast with friends up the valley and then come home and cook Xmas dinner for C’s very pregnant niece and her partner – assuming that the baby doesn’t decide to appear before then.

After Christmas, we are going to spend a few days in Dunedin, where C will celebrate her 50th birthday on January 1st with her family. We think it will be the first time mother and all five siblings will have been together since the 40th birthday celebrations, so that’ll be pretty special. Everyone in the family knows how to cook, to organise, to fit in and to clean up, so nothing is actually planned – it will just happen and it’ll be fun and easy.

So, all that remains is for us to wish you a very Merry Christmas, wherever you may be and whatever the weather. May the New Year be filled with love, good health, happiness and at least a little bit of adventure, and we look forward to catching up with you sometime during the year.

Out of Africa

It will come as no surprise to anyone to find out that it was whole lot easier for us to get out of Tunisia than it was to get in. Our NZ passports did cause some consternation to the young woman at the check-in counter but a quick check with her superviser was enough to see us through and on our way back to Paris...

...and getting into Europe remains one of the most astonishingly easy things to do. I don't think we ever pass through an airport here without marvelling at the speed and apparent lack of checks on our way through, at least for those of us with "European" looks and a NZ passport.

The climate change has been a bit of a shock to our systems - we left temperatures in the mid-20s and returned to 9 degrees. Apparently it has been unseasonably cold here for the last week or so. Just the motivation we need to really start looking forward to coming home! We are really looking forward to catching up with family and friends in person too.

What a difference a day makes

Follows "Into Africa" below

When our visas were finally given to us, it was after midnight in Tunisian time, so Monday was our first official day in the country. We woke at around 8:30 after an exhausted sleep and began to take in the surroundings. The Golf Beach Hotel has three stars. Its rooms are reminiscent of hotel rooms in the French Pacific islands: clean, spacious and functional but with slightly dodgy bathroom arrangements - in this case a shower (over a bath) whose water does not want to be contained by the slightly-too-small shower curtain and tiles. Only the picture of a carpet-seller in the bedroom and the pattern of the tiles in the bathroom hint at a North African rather than a South Pacific setting. From the bedroom window, the vegetation doesn’t look too different either; date palms replace coconut palms but otherwise the grass struggles to grow in just the same way and bougainvilleas abound.

Our first call in the morning was to the main reception area to complete the registration formalities, which they had kindly spared us the night before. We’d been through it the night before but in the near-dark and in our exhausted state, we hadn’t noticed a great deal. Now it was blatantly obvious that we were somewhere quite different. The architecture and the décor - both sumptuous - shouted of their North African location. Registration was easy; we had a form to complete and we were then “labelled” with a hospital-type bracelet, which we wear all week and which identifies us as being entitled to eat, drink, play and stay in the resort within the (generous) limitations provided by the package deal. There are, of course, always extras available at a cost!


Suitably “tagged“, we launched into our day with a buffet breakfast that had everything you’d hope for except decent coffee, followed by an orientation wander around the complex. It is probably fair to say that the resort as a whole would be at the upper end of the three-star range - the pools and surrounds are magnificent, as are the communal areas of the hotel. In addition to the main pool outside, there is a smaller, heated, indoor-outdoor pool linked to the health and fitness centre. The weight training room is available free of charge; the massage and spa treatments come at a cost. The resort is situated right on the beach and offers loungers, and a variety of free water-sports, including kayaks, catamarans and pedal boats. For a fee, you can hire a jet-ski or go for a ride on dromedary. I think we’ll stick with the free activities…

In beautiful, sunny weather with temperatures ranging from around 20-26 degrees, the day went more or less as follows:
Change into swimming togs and go down to the beach
Swim in the sea
Lie in the sun
Swim in the sea
Lie in the sun
Move to poolside


Swim in pool
Pre-lunch G&T from the poolside bar
Buffet lunch (wine included)
Siesta
Back down to the beach
Kayak, swim, lie in sun to dry off
Back to room to shower and change
Pre-dinner cocktail for new guests
Buffet dinner
Reading and game of cards
Bed

As you can imagine, with this kind of day following the previous one, we slept like logs having decided that maybe we would be happy to stay in the country for the whole week after all.

Into Africa

At the beginning of October we found ourselves within striking distance of St Jean de Losne and we were noticing the cooler mornings and evenings even though the days were glorious. There had been no rain since September 5th. We took M and M to Dijon, one of our favourite cities, to have a look around and then they would catch a TGV for Paris. We all had lunch in a nice café with the lovely Christian who took us on a brief walking tour of his city that he is so proud of. The lovely man then drove M and M to the station. Earlier in the day Christian took us to his travel agent as we had mentioned trying to find a ‘last minute’ cheap destination to somewhere warm where we could swim in the sea. Nadine recommended a resort in Djerba, Tunisia, which was on the beach, had all the usual features of a resort. The price included all meals and drinks as well as all activities except motorised water sports. As Tunisia is a former French colony, it is an easy destination for the French. We asked about the need for a visa and Nadine made a phone call to check on that important detail and was told an NZ passport and a return ticket were all that was needed.

We left Dijon on Sunday 11th and as usual J was anxious to be at the Gare in plenty of time to catch the TGV to Paris. Christian, with whom we were staying, assured us it only took 20 minutes to get to the station and as we had our tickets he could drop us very close to the platform and 10.30am would be plenty of time to catch a 10.52 an train. To cut a long story short, as we were all packed and ready at 9am, he decided to take us for a walk around Talant and Fontaine, two old and charming parts of Dijon before dropping us off at the railway station. The train ride to Paris was pleasant and uneventful, and it was amusing to follow part of the canal we did last year. A section that took us weeks last year took just 18 minutes in the TGV. At the Gare de Lyon, on Christian’s advice we took an airport shuttle bus instead of the metro because there would be fewer stairs to carry suitcases up and down. However, we were going to Terminal 3 at Charles de Gaulle and the shuttle bus route had changed. We must have dragged our suitcases well over one kilometre before we got to the terminal.

When we checked in, the lady at the counter frowned at our passports, called in the manager who made a phone call and verified that a NZ passport and a return ticket were adequate. We blithely thought that would be the end of the matter! The plane was an hour and a half late taking off which meant we had cooled our heels at the airport for nearly 5 hours. Terminal 3 is very much a satellite terminal with little to see or do. We were hungry and were able to buy a packet of biscuits to eat. We had chosen a salad for lunch when we got to Paris as we felt the need for vegetables. It had been lovely but hadn’t lasted the extra time till the (modest) in-flight meal had arrived. The flight itself was uneventful and the entertainment consisted solely of watching the progress of the plane’s journey from France into Africa.

We disembarked and joined the queue to go through the immigration check. When our entry documents were inspected a ‘manager’ was rung and we were summarily told to get our luggage and ‘sit over there’! We were given explanation and no opportunity to ask what the problem was. We were just told that we had no visa. Another couple was there, they had just had their visa cleared. They told us they had a visa but there was some discrepancy with the spelling of one person‘s name. It had taken them two hours to sort out. It was just after 9pm local time(10pm French time) and we had no visa of any description. So we waited. After about two hours a young man joined us. We chatted to him. His parents were locals and he lived in Belgium. He spoke good English. We said no one was telling us what was happening. He said the manager probably does not know, he would have to ring someone, perhaps our Embassy to find out. By now it was really late and we knew the shuttle that should have taken us to the resort would have gone ages ago. The young man was at least able to reassure us that the airport bank was open 24 hours and taxis were not expensive. The young man was given the all clear to leave and we were left alone and by now exhausted in an empty terminal in the early hours of the morning with no idea what was happening. If they were trying to make us worried, it was working.


The next time the manager walked by we were brave enough to ask him what was happening. We explained the lengths we had gone to and the advice we had from the travel agent and the counter at Charles de Gaulle. He dismissed all that as French inadequacy and reiterated we needed a visa and he was going to make a phone call about it. That he hadn’t made the call earlier was probably to emphasise the fact we were completely in his hands. By now we were more than a little concerned. Then abruptly he burst out of his office, all energy and action and told C to go off with another official. J was to stay with the luggage. As the minutes ticked by, J was getting more and more concerned. Another flight came in and was processed and then the terminal was empty again. J began to wonder how she and C had so meekly followed orders with no explanation! She also realised she would find it very difficult to speak to officials who spoke only Arabic and French and get information about where C was. After half an hour alone with a very active imagination, J decided that when the next flight came in she would shout out, ‘does anyone here speak English, I need help!’ Fortunately at that point, C arrived and said we would have our visas as soon as she had changed some euros to cover the fee of 20 dinar (about NZ$20). So the good news was we could legally stay for a week but by then we were wondering if we really wanted to.


We left the terminal to arrange for a taxi (the only transport option at that time of the day) to take us to Golf Beach Hotel which, for some reason, we thought was only about 7km away. There were a lot of taxis outside even though it was the early hours of the morning. We followed some advice we had in France and asked how much it would cost as apparently this was something one bartered. The man said there was a meter in the car. There seemed to be no option but to get in the car. About half a dozen other taxi drivers hooted and hollered at our driver when we said where we wanted to go. We had no idea what they were saying but it made us uncomfortable. We tried to take comfort from the fact that Tunisia needs its tourism industry and that we were probably safe. We were quickly out of the town area and were travelling very quickly out into ‘country’ area. The meter was ticking over at a frightening speed and heading towards 140 dinar (NZ$140) when the driver stopped at the Djerba Beach Hotel - we had asked to be taken to the Golf Beach Resort! We repeated the name of the our hotel and he said, OK it is just down the road. After a while - and a lot more clicks on the meter - C asked how much further it was and expressed some concern about the cost. He protested and told us that the reading on the meter wasn’t the 140 dinar we imagined but only 14 dinar. It transpires that in Tunisia they always put in three places their decimal point - not the two we are accustomed to. When he realised our misunderstanding he could hardly stop laughing. He kept hitting the steering wheel and cackling fit to kill. However, that broke the tension and the driver and C had a nice chat till we eventually got to the correct resort. The one hour‘s drive cost just over NZ$21, not the NZ$210 we thought we were going to have to pay. We finally got to our room at 2am, French time, exhausted, hungry and thirsty. We were too scared to drink the water out of the tap (with reason, it turns out) so had a shower and went to bed in the hope of tomorrow being a better day…

On reflection…
We can’t help wondering how 2 Tunisian women would get on trying to come to NZ for a week-long holiday after a stay in Australia; we suspect they may well find themselves on a plane back to wherever we had come from.

Our last three stops

JOINVILLE
We took one day to motor from St. Dizier to Joinville instead of the planned two. The intermediary stop, where we thought we would spend one night turned out to be very humble - and in the middle of nowhere. It had no services, which in good weather is no problem, but we decided to push on to Joinville where we could have electricity and turn on a heater if we got cold. Autumn has very definitely arrived with cooler mornings and evenings but usually with nice weather during the daytime. Joinville was an absolute treat and we stayed three nights instead of the one we had planned. The quay was well appointed, the mooring was free, as was the electricity and water. There was also an attractive and quite large picnic area, which was shared with camping cars and, unusually, there was quite a lot of interaction between boaties and mobile home owners. The spectacle of landing a fish certainly helped. The boat in front of us was owned by a German couple. The husband hooked a HUGE carp that took ages to land. By the time he did so, he had a very large audience but handled it all with great aplomb. Mercifully he quickly released the fish to fight another day. (Unlike another man in Sillery who caught a 13kg carp, had it out of the water for ages so it could be weighed and everyone have their photo taken and then it was put in a small net and left in the water all night and released in the morning. For what reason? We have no idea.)

Joinville had four supermarkets and a bricolage (hardware store) to check out. Catherine found a product that we hope will solve our leaking shower problem and busied herself digging out mastic that she had put in last year and replacing it with some two-part epoxy stuff that was a bit like plasticine when mixed and sets hard in 4 minutes. Time will tell if is does the job!

We especially enjoyed the company of Mike and Barbara, Brits in a camping car, Wally and Laurie, Canadians in a yacht called ‘The Do Littles’ with two dogs and a cat (all of whom sailed from Canada to France in their yacht having never done any blue water sailing before) and the lovely Katinka (Dutch turned Aussie) in a magnificent Dutch barge. Katinka’s husband, Scott, is working in Libya at the moment and so she will stay in Joinville for the next few weeks till he returns. It is true to say that we had two very convivial and enjoyable evenings. The third evening we were whacked and were happy to get an early night ready to navigate to Froncles.



FRONCLES
Another nice quay with water and electricity, not free but very reasonable at 6 euros for two nights mooring with electricity. Again it was shared with the camping cars. Catherine did some painting around the repair work in the shower and we both did a lot of little jobs that needed doing including of course the ubiquitous washing. We had an enjoyable bike ride in and around the place, chatted to other boaties and some camping car folk, especially Mike and Ann from the UK.


VIEVILLE (today 20th Sept.)
After a short hassle-free run from Froncles, being Sunday, we stopped and had a special lunch with a wine or two and so stayed put for the rest of the day. The mooring spot is - again - a delight. It has a very good quay, a picnic area and space for camping cars. Unusually, it also has a collection of fruit trees and at the moment there are three apple and one crab apple tree just dripping with ripe fruit. J picked a saucepan full of crab apples and they are already cooked and being strained ready to make crab apple jelly. We’ll need to buy some sugar for that - tomorrow at Chaumont. The apples are all a little on the tart side, so we are planning to make some tarts, or apple turnovers, so easy to do in our oven. We rested after lunch - as you do - then went for a one and a half hour bike ride in and around the area, which is wonderful. Very pastoral and picturesque. Many paddocks have been harvested of their crops and are ploughed ready for the next cycle. It really is a small but seemingly prosperous and very beautiful part of France.