Blog #1 2019

Monday 27^th May – Friday 7^th June

Without anything special happening it’s been non-stop these last 10 days.

Despite my fears about driving down to Kent on Bank Holiday Monday, all went smoothly through the road works and we were in our hotel in Wisques in Northern France by late afternoon, and Laddie happily romping on the lawn.

French motorways are the only place I can use cruise control – with light traffic and smooth surfaces it’s absolute bliss, and stress-free (we have to pay of course but worth every cent).

Day 2 (Tuesday) mid- afternoon saw us arrive at our Burgundy base of Saint Florentin (St.Flo) to be met with warm greetings by Vincent the port manager as we pulled up by ‘Blue Moon’.

Sue’s face dropped ‘it’s moored the wrong way round!!’

The side door was on the opposite side to us so offloading all our stuff would mean going up to the top deck and then down into the cabin and our boxes and bags were heavy. Young Cedric (local adolescent schoolboy) appeared to help Vincent and their two pairs of hands attached more ropes fore and aft and turned the 32ft long, 10 ton boat by hand, on a sixpence (or less than a Euro at least) in minutes.

Crisis over and unloading began.

That afternoon and the following day, we were embraced and kissed on both cheeks (sometimes twice) by a succession of male and female French boat owners and locals so many times we lost count.

In between the ‘grosses bises’ we toiled in the hot sun to wash the green winter slime from the boat’s exterior. Fortunately, the interior had been left neat and tidy by our neighbours, Michel and Nathalie, who had delivered the boat back for us last season from Decize to St.Flo. but the many boxes and bags took a couple of days to be stashed away so we could actually get onto the boat without tripping over them.

Laddie found a young playmate Victoria, a hyperactive 12 year old French schoolgirl, who tried her best to tire both of them out from dawn to dusk, which was a mostly a big help to us (but boy was she annoying, especially when she was still trying to get Laddie to play late evening and we (and Laddie) were looking for some peace and quiet).

Her dad, a Lyonnais from Paris sent her to invite us to an impromptu Ascension Day holiday drinks party on Thursday May 30^th. 2 Germans, 3 French and 2 Brits we sat at a picnic bench under the trees on the marina ‘lawn’ and drank mixtures of strong beer, Chablis and Ricard pastis and told anecdotes in as many languages, though mainly English. Common experiences too as the German lady knew well a pub in Baden, Switzerland where I would drink beer with my old friend Uri. Small world.

We finally got our dinner at around 9pm, leaving the others to continue until well after dark.

A week later and we now have another ‘Fête National’ weekend starting today, Friday 7^th June until next Tuesday when schools and industry return to work for another 4 day week. This time it’s for Whitsuntide. This is known as ‘faire le pont’ (to do the bridge) in France and happens whenever a bank holiday falls during the week. Last week we had Ascension Day on the Thursday so the ‘bridge’ went from Wednesday thru to Sunday night. Where did we go wrong?

With temperatures up to 34º this last week, the weather has now turned to rain and gusts of up to 50 mph are forecast tonight.

This next week we are hoping to get our small, hardwood mast back from a fellow, local, boat-owner, Bernard, who took it away to strip the flaking varnish off when I asked if anyone had an electric sander I could borrow. When I saw him yesterday he said (in French of course) ‘I’ve got 3 coats on it so far’.

I feel a ‘thank-you’ bottle of whiskey will be coming his way soon!

More soon