October 2014 - last few weeks of cruising, 'home' to Briare, and UK visit

You've seen one view of our stopover at Cours les Barres, here is another showing the fairly gruesome fountain head, part of the stream (which must be pumped as it went off at night!) down from the village above:

We stayed here a week with our friends until they left (the other way), relaxing in the sunny days, which were many, before setting off on the 6th.  We had already cycled up to Chantier Evezard at Maseilles-les-Aubigny to find if they could replace our bow thruster gearbox, so today we moored up against one of their boats to meet the boss again, as arranged, to show him the job.  Then we moved on to La Chapelle-Montlinard- a horrid mooring, all sloping sides, nothing proper to moor to, dreadful silo outlook. En route there we saw a sign that looked interesting:

 We moved on as soon as possible the next day to a spot we knew by car, Menetreol-sous-Sancerre.  Mooring here was not free but not expensive, and the local restaurant was the main draw.  Talking of drawing, I had a go at drawing this interesing and clearly old building.  Sorry it's a bit dark!

Naturally we took the opportunity to do the tour advertised above, and here is Nik & our guide going into the vines, and it's at least as steep as it looks.  This is Pouilly Fume terroir, so mixtures of 3 key minerals that make the various versions of this lovely wine:

After two nights here, having filled up with wine and 4 course meal at the local restaurant, we had to move on, this time to Bellville-sur-Loire.  It's a small village, one power socket, but had the best view:

Being the local nuclear power station, called Belleville (beautiful town).  I was hoping to visit the station as we were told it was fascinating, but you need to book well in advance.  So we went past it on our cycle into Neuvy-sur-Loire, which was quite a long way to go for a coffee!:

The Belleville mooring had free services, using a special adaptor from the Tourist Office, and quite a few hotels.  It also had some huge and unusual colour Lantana bushes that I coveted:

 

They were also showing something like fruit berries.  I've had no luck with my little Lantanas, three gone now, and am beginning to think it needs a huge tub to keep it moist.  They are expensive and don't look that healthy on the rare occasions we find them.  Come next year there might just be a little gap in this display!

Home at last!  Feels really odd to be back after all the travelling.  We really have three lives, winter mooring among locals and other boating friends, travelling the waterways, and back in UK, each one so different.  Live a lot I say!  Here we are:

Now I won't continue with this blog for the rest of 2014, but as I've started October I'll put a few more pix from our visit back to UK from 17th onwards.  First Chastleton House with Marius (using our Life Membership of the National Trust (rarer these days!):

 

Then from our trip "Oop North" where we spent a night at Ian (cousin) and Mary's, shown here beside their lovely roses (who don't seem to know it's winter!):

Then of course to grandson, who is clearly having a joke with his father (field left) about my silly hairstyle:

Then Nik takes a turn, but looks much more like a mum than a granny to me:

The last pic is to seek your sympathy (not that we deserve it generally) as I show a picture of the 'Local' where we booked for our Christmas Day feast - are you imagining it yet? - it was worse than this, not only the ambiance but some (not all) of the food was about literally the dog's dinner !  Never again.

Actually it looks pretty good in this pic, you can't see the gambling machines, and this corner is nicer than the place we were put (not where we'd booked to be).  But it had space.  Next time I book it a year ahead.  For another £10/head we could have been in a much nicer place, but it would have meant a drive rather than a 3 minute walk, so you takes your choice.  So, I say farewell for 2014, and a NYear resolution has to be that I'll make the blog more current, less historic !  But it won't be in garbled English like Hilary Mantel's trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, but then I'm not trying to be literary !  Barely literate will do. Happy New Year !

September 2014 Cruising again (i.e. not in UK !)

Just to list the places we moored this month (not all pictured here):  Seurre, Verdun-sous-Doubs, Chalons-sur-Saone, Le Bas Santenay, St. Julien-sur-Dheune, Monceau les Mines, Genelard, Paray le Monial, Digoin, Diou, Saulx Lock, Decize, St. Leger les Vignes/Cercy la Tour, Decize (again) Port de la Jonction, Fleury-sur-Loire, Nevers, Cours les Barres.  Wow! No good pix of Seurre (nice place to cycle from !), but one of Verdun-sous-Doubs (a river just off the Saone) which is actually very pretty, but has very few moorings for any large boats:

The Isle du Chateau is well worth exploring, and there was a small but excellent market;  only the second place we've found in France to buy proper, thick, fresh cream!  Then Chalons-sur-Saone, the church:

We stayed here the one night, nice place but expensive mooring, way out on a pontoon, and barely possible to moor elsewhere;  also some 'wag' startled us by throwing a half full cup of Coke onto our wheelhouse roof, staining the deck and leaving quite a mess.  We were that close to a footbridge, way above us. So this is a view looking back to one of the road bridges that linked the marina to the town:

Paint Your Wagon has the line "I never saw a town didn't look better, looking back". Chalons is nice either way.  The first (deep!) lock takes you onto the Canal du Centre, and we needed to use it pronto as it was due to close very soon because of water shortage (it often does).  They point out the change:

We were now moving a bit fast to avoid being stranded on the Canal du Centre (some were!).  Neither Santenay (3 picnic tables, one windy-up tap!) nor St. Julien-sur-Dheune (nice, tiny) yielded any pix, so the next one is of Monceau les Mines.  Here we had a rare officious VNF official saying mooring 'Interdit'.  This was not true, but we couldn't see a good space or anyone to hail to moor up against.  We could've moved back from the bankside mooring we chose further along, but it meant going back through 2 lifting bridges operated by VNF, and turning in a narrow canal without a bow thruster.  The town was nice, and we'd intended staying for several days had they been more hospitable.  There was a huge (temporary) funfair and fireworks just by the port (hence the 'danger, but loads of boats were there).

We had now 'made it' to the top of the Canal du Centre, all the hardest locks behind us (actually that was yesterday) but tonight, at Genelard, which was full (if you wanted power) we were safely past the closures region.  We had to borrow cable from others as our 75 metres was not enough to reach the one power post. The map we follow was as wrong as it could be over location.  We stayed two days, though I'm not sure why! I think it was for a rest, and because there were some other very helpful boaters there . Next stop was the lovely Paray le Monial:

We only stayed the one night, but left late on the next day after visiting one of the many churches there: 

We'll enjoy another visit sometime.  Next stop Digoin, which has some good features: 

We now leave the Canal du Centre (nice and curvy, the designer thought it more interesting (it is!) and move onto the Canal Lateral a la Loire (i.e. beside the Loire). The trip onwards to Diou involves one of many canal viaducts (pont canal) over some big river, oh yes, the Loire again.  It's a bit hairy as you go over the bridge to a lock and hope you can get into that!: 

No pix taken of the next two stops, Diou or of Saulx (well, it was just after the last lock before the complicated bit to go off the canal and into Decize & the Loire proper!). We liked Decize, tho' it's quite a walk/ride to town from the well-equipped marina.  Here's our mooring there: 

There was a fete going on that weekend - we missed out on the big meal, but the acts the next day were impressive, in fact pretty amazing, and all free: 

Then we were so pleased to welcome some very good friends who came down specially to stay with us.  We took a little trip onto the Loire river (I was pretty nervous about this) to avoid being swept onto the great barrage (like a weir) and thence up the Canal du Nivernais a little way.  The Loire: 

A very nice lunch at St. Leger les Vignes (no facilities operating), we found a very haughty kitten (lived near the old chat-eau) at our night stop of Cercy La Tour: 

We stayed the night at Cercy La Tour (by good luck, met more great friends there, oh the imbibing!).

Then next day back to Decize to moor right on the bank of the Loire, by the town iself.  The next morning there was a huge car boot sale - never knew there was that much 'stuff' that I never wanted !

Archangel was moored just to the right of this lot, as below:

After our friends left, to drive home to Coleshill, we moved back to the Port de la Jonction just up there on the right, and stayed there several days, tasting wines, going on bike rides all around the place:

We now found a lovely mooring in 'Old France', a restaurant of sorts having its last weekend open and celebrating the fact in grand style.  There it is, the tents:

We enjoyed eating their menu, and sharing drinks with the patron (he doesn't like Islay whisky, prefers some obscene blended muck!). There was an excellent baker just up the short hill, but I was caught in possession:

Hands Up!  A bit fuzzy because Nik forgot to clean the lens on her iPad !  Next stop Nevers.  Very difficult to moor because the town has so little mooring, especially for larger boats, so we took a chance and moored by a grass/mud bank.  I think we ran aground a bit, but it was fine.  Lots of lorries there, met a nice Bulgarian driver who lived a rather gypsy life of cooking just by the wheel of his rig ! Longish cycle ride into town, but worth it:

Lots more pix, and a town well worth another, and longer visit, but preferably from a better mooring.  After two nights at Nevers we set off and came to a very strange bridge over the, you guessed it, Loire, leading to a proper staircase lock with a composite drop of 9.23 metres, and with very, very odd inclined sides to the lock which pose problems.  Here we are at the top (the pont over the Loire is behind us) :

We were now very lucky to moor at a simply super spot, free services too, Cours les Barres.  We met some very good friends here too, whom we'd met at the start of this year's sailing season (in Moret).  Here are the two boats (theirs is made by the same UK builder as ours):

We were very sorry to leave here, in fact we stayed until 6th October, so some more pix in next month's exciting adventures of Archangel.  Bet you can't wait...

August 2014 - Mostly UK, only 6 pix!

Owing to little Bill Raffles (that's our name for him) we spend from end July to 26th August in UK, so have enough pictures to fill several albums, so be thankful you'll only see one here, as follows:

This was taken in the lovely garden of Mumtaz's parents in Leicester, where the cutting of the hair called Aquita, naming ceremony (tho' that was done a bit earlier) like a baptism, took place.  Her mother easily prepared a couple of complete outfits for Nik to wear, this being the one used on the day !

The caterpillar's toadstool from the Wedding Cake was remodelled to carry the constellation Leo (Raffle's birthsign) and a little Leo, which worked pretty well:

These principal stars in the constellation are labelled for those of you who don't know them by heart!  We had a grand time meeting up with lots of friends, too much eating and drinking of course.  Then, the day before our departure back to UK, we sold our VW Xplorer Camper we've had for 24 years, for a knock-down price for a quick sale and to save any further hassle over all the vehicles we had.  Here's what makes it so amazing, the roof space larger than its footprint.  We'll not see its like again:

It's odd now to actually own no 4-wheeled transport, having rid ourselves of 4 in this year !
Then on 26th August we returned to Auxonne for a few days:

Then on 28th we moved on to Seurre, where we literally arrived right in the middle of the France-wide championship of these power boats that look like sporty spaceships (we had an hour or so waiting mid-stream before there was a lull to allow us up to a mooring, where we had prime observing position;  we also welcomed aboard some friends from UK to observe from Archangel.

That's all for August folks !

July 2014 - Touring the Marne to the Saone & UK baby visit

We just loved Chalons-en-Champagne (so good they named it twice, formerly Chalons-sur-Marne) and could fill several blogs with our pictures of it.  Here is just one of the many, wonderful squares there:

The town has several canals that you can visit on a motorised barge, which was amazing:

We just came out of that little entrance, really, don't believe me:

I forgot to mention that the town had enclosed a lot of the canals (rivers really) to provide more building space !

I thought you might like standing on your head?! This was an exit of one of the tunnels. Next stop was a little place called Orconte, nice mooring, little facilities, but great for us, as we saw a boat very like ours, one we knew and had used as a specification for the painting of ours:

See what I mean?  Looks kinda familiar.  Our next night was near Ancerville, near because the heavens opened and delivered such an impressive downpour that at times we couldn't even see the bow! Luckily we'd moored to a few steel rails in a field, as it continued until dark.  Next morning we saw some moped riders opposite who stopped to hail us; they told us that a tree had fallen and blocked the canal, and we thought he's shouted that it could take 10 days to clear!!  We decided to cycle up to the very nice mooring in Ancerville and investigate this for ourselves:

This tree here is just one of the ten (trees, not days it seems), the next one you see is bridging the whole width !  We'd moored at the lovely new quay, which had all facilities, but it was too new to have been connected to water or electric yet !  Also we had to use the new lamp units to help moor as they'd not yet put anything to moor to!  Next year it'll be good.  They cleared the trees only a little after the forecast 10am, and a queue of boats proceeded on their way. Next stop Joinville:

We stayed here a week, and Nik's sister drove all the way down to us in her camper, which was great.  There was this Petit Chateau to visit, a deliberately beautiful building for entertaining.  That day there was a piece of musical theatre going on, where we acted as the mobile audience:

We had some niice trips out, one day we visited Colomby les deux Eglises where Charles de Gaulle lived in this house - the tower he had added on himself to give him a lovely office:

After saying farewell to our valued guest, we made our way throught the dense carpet of weed that hid a canal, past some impressive aquatic tractors that were heaving it out, and on to Vouecourt:

This was their impressive wash house, rather romanesque inside, a good stop.  We were now on the canal rather than the river Marne;  it was hot enough to lower the front windscreen for the breeze !

There were some little bridges en route, and it still feels odd going up over the river:

The next few nights we spent at Chaumont, another very impressive old, walled town:

It was quite a walk, or cycle up to town.  Based on the postcards we sought out this viaduct that seemed to be so much off the tourist route as to be without any signs to it !

It's more impressive than it looks, and there's a public walkway along level 1, heaven knows how impressive it must be to walk on levels 2 or the top !  Next stop was the amazing town of Langres:

We could easily have spent a month or so here, with its lovely ramparts walkable all around the town, and many churches and other historical buildings to visit.  The art galleries and museums drew us in from the heat, and had some excellent art and history.  One picture took my eye:

I hope you can see the look on the male doll ? There are a lot of local artist's work, Jean-Marie Maillard, 20th Century and very original and skilled. I'd never heard of him though.  Now we would have stayed here longer except we received the news that our first grandchild had decided to appear 2 weeks early, so had to make haste to reach Auxonne, where we'd booked a berth for a few weeks.  The first challenge was the 4.8 km tunnel.  Why do they always look so earie on approach?

  This tunnel was unusually well lit:

This was to be our longest day, 26 locks, 26 km, including this tunnel, 10 hours travelling!  This was partly because stopping places were very, very few, or full, or too, too small:

We did find one just tiny bit longer, at our target location of Cusey, then I again suggested a smaller boat (they'd been following us through the locks) moor alongside.  We both made an early start.  Then, at one lock, some guy lounging in a deckchair told us there were two Peniches coming our way (that means the largest, commercial size barges).  We couldn't see them but kept out a weather eye.  I look at Nik and say "Wouldn't it be awful if one were to come around the next bend, just there where it's so narrow !!"  Well, picture this, bearing in mind that we have to pass to the right of them:

We'd been speeding along, to make good time, and he certainly was.  In this pic we'd already emergency stopped and used bow thruster and all to push ourselves over, into the shallows!  I have the sequence here:

He did take avoiding action:

So in the end, we had loads of space, but at a cost (that comes later).  So, I hear you think, what about the next Peniche ?  Well ,we decided to use the duc d'Albe (big steel posts) to moor ourselves securely, or so we thought, to let them pass us.  This was not our best idea, it turned out:

Up until he'd actually passed, I was convinced we'd at least scrape, so couldn't contemplate a picture.  Despite 4 ropes, bow and sternlines secure, we swayed about like a cork under the suction and again I had to use motor, bow thruster and everything to oppose it.  He didn't slow down, and didn't shake my hand (I stuck my hand out for this, but he was preoccupied, yet we were easily close enough). Wow!  Next night in Oisilly, then on to the River Saone, through a very impressive lock, but to reach a lovely river.  So we moored up in the marina at Auxonne for a longish stay, hired a car, and off to UK.  Our cat Bollinger never liked car travel, or I think that's what he said:

You really need the sound to understand his feelings most clearly;  we just use ear defenders.  It means we have to use motorways and drive like we have two great-great aunts in the back.  Then the goal:

Is he ready for his first sailing lesson?  I'll only give you one more of the multitude taken, usually against the light (!), this time with his father:

He's much bigger than that now !  That took us well into August, which is the next instalment.