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| Our first orange tip of the year |
When Karen went for a run along the river on Thursday morning, she saw lots of butterflies including our first orange tip of the year. As I mention every year in the blog, this
butterfly is really our harbinger of spring and what a warm day it turned out
to be on Thursday. Whenever we were on
the boat Buddy seemed to be so happy as he just lay outside stretched out in
the sun.
After lunch we walked into Migennes to get a French data SIM
card for the boat internet. On Wednesday
we had walked down the right bank into Migennes, so we decided to try the left
bank this time. It was more wooded but
sheltered from the breeze and we saw more orange tips and also lots of
cuckooflower (aka lady’s smock) which is one of the two main plants that orange
tips lay their eggs on and the caterpillars subsequently eat.
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| Cuckooflower |
I’m sorry to witter on about butterflies but one more fact
about the orange tip. It has been
accepted since the early 1900s that the orange tips resident in Great
Britain are a separate subspecies to those in mainland Europe. Also, those in Ireland are yet another
subspecies. So, the full Latin name for
the UK butterfly is anthocharis cardamines ssp. britannica and the Irish form
is anthocharis cardamines ssp. hibernica.
Anyway, back to SIM cards.
On one of our regular phone chats with Mike & Aileen, Aileen told us
this week where the shop was in Migennes that sold SIM cards. It was over two years since she had bought a
SIM there, but the shop was still in business and we successfully purchased a
data SIM from Free to replace the UK one from Three that we used for internet
on the boat. Quite a difference in
price; we paid £30 a month for 100gig in the UK, the one from Free is only
€19.99 a month and we can also use it for making calls.
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| Our boat looking a bit small when walking past our mooring on the way into Migennes |
We used our UK data SIM in our router but, after research,
we have found that ordinary phone SIMs are cheaper in France, so we will use a spare phone
for data tethering rather than the router. This means we will have no need for
the router whilst over here which is one less (fewer doesn’t sound right 😉)
appliance needing 240-volt power. So now
we only need the inverter on to create 240 volts when using the food processors
or the washing machine.
It wasn’t entirely successful as the SIM didn’t work in the
spare phone; it only worked in our regular phones which we really want to keep
with their UK numbers at present. So, it
will be a trip into Auxerre tomorrow to pick up a cheap second-hand phone that
we can use.
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| Flood levels on one of the bridges we walked under |
Back to wildlife, we did see one solitary swallow in the morning taking insects above the water. It hung around for a while before it looked like it was carrying on with its journey northwards.
Friday’s two main tasks were to get rid of the car and get a
cheap phone to enable us to have internet.
Auxerre is the nearest large town, so we headed off there in the morning
before getting rid of the car.
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| Weather looking promising on Friday morning |
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| Pleasant looking buildings above the modern shop fronts in the centre of Auxerre |
It was quite surreal as we walked along the river
front. It seemed that we knew nearly
everyone we saw as we had met them back in Migennes. They were a mixture of English and French
people who live on their boats there but had driven down to Auxerre for the day
to watch the activities.
It was quite fun as each party grappled with the opposite
language, but practise helps build confidence.
We and the other Brits would speak French to one degree or another and
the French guys were trying out their English, again to a greater or lesser
extent.
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| The Yonne runs through Auxerre and we plant to come through here on Sunday |
With such glorious weather and seeing people eating and
drinking outside it really feels like we’re on holiday at the moment. Our children wouldn’t understand that as they
think we’re on holiday all the time 😊
There were a few boats on the move taking people on trips up and down the riverfront through the town. Simon was there on one of his many lifeboats; he buys old lifeboats and restores them at his yard. This particular one was a French one and he was showing off its firehose to the paying guests.
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| Photo taken by Judy Evans |
On the way back to Migennes to drop the car off we called in
at a place called Gurgy. We planned to stop there overnight
on Saturday and wanted to check out the mooring situation. Of course, with the river currently closed,
the pontoons were completely empty, but the water was on, so we’ll get a chance
to top the tank up when we stopover.
When we got back to Migennes we left the car at Simon’s yard
and walked back to the boat in Laroche.
We both admitted that it’s a lovely feeling to be carless again but
accept we need one for getting back to the UK when we need to. It really does appear to be the easiest way
to travel over here when you have a non-lap dog (dogs have to be on laps in
public transport and are also not allowed on Eurostar).
So, the locks open on Saturday morning and we are now really
excited (and nervous) about setting off.
Oh, and there were several swallows catching the insects
above the water as we watched the sun going down on Friday evening.
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