After lunch we walked down to the River Brenne to give Buddy
a chance to cool off. He loves
retrieving sticks providing he doesn’t go out of his depth; if a stick is
floating the wrong side of a deep patch then he will give up.
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We must have been stick throwing for a good hour when, he
suddenly swam for about six feet. This
was the first time we have ever seen him swim, but he wouldn’t do it
again. He had become a lot more
adventurous though and was now putting his head under water and not minding if
his back got wet!
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| Head under |
My youngest son, Jake, was marrying Dominique at ten UK time
in Birmingham register office (near the canal at the Mailbox) in a quiet
ceremony with no guests other than the obligatory witnesses. At four minutes to the hour he contacted me
as he didn’t know how to spell my middle name.
I shouldn’t laugh as a similar thing happened when Sophie & Yanos got
married last year 😉
Anyway, we’re very pleased for the newlyweds, and are glad
they are so happy together and have done things their own way. That’s three very different Payne children
weddings in fewer than 12 months!
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| At least they sent us a selfie |
The frogs seem to be giving the crickets a run for their
money in the noise stakes lately. I’ve
mentioned before how we can hear crickets above the noise of the engine. For
the last couple of weeks frogs seem to be making a lot of noise too and well
into the evening. I had thought they
only do this in the mating season, but it feels a little late for that, so
maybe I’m wrong.
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| Our evening view being drowned out by the noise of crickets and frogs |
We did achieve one important thing on Friday and agreed
where we will be going after we return from our week’s holiday in the UK at the
end of June. We have decided to head
down the Seine and into the middle of Paris.
After that we fancy pootling around the Champagne region and maybe even
get over to Strasbourg. To that end we
ordered three new waterways guidebooks to pick up when we’re back in the UK.
Whilst in the buying mood we also ordered two more
guidebooks to cover the trip down to the south of France and the Canal du Midi
as we both now feel that will be the likely adventure for next year. That little lot cost over £100 so there’s no
changing our minds now 😉
We had a gentle cruise on Saturday morning as the
temperatures were going to be in the thirties by the afternoon.
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| Leaving Courcelle-lès-Montbard |
After three locks we were entering the town of Montbard
where we planned on stopping for the rest of the day. The quaysides were full of casual fishermen
as we entered town, but they were all friendly and cheerily waved as we passed
though.
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| Entering Montbard |
Just before the port we passed a Casino supermarket which
had the unusual offering of a deliver to boat service:
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When we got to the port there was only one boat moored there
and with seven pontoons as well as lengths of quay with rings and bollards, we
had the choice of moorings. The pontoons
were quite short, so we opted for a bankside mooring.
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| Moored at Montbard on Saturday |
Once we were moored and got Buddy tied to a tree in the shade,
we got the sunshade out and had our lunch.
Karen, who has developed a keen sense for this, noticed we were
beginning to list. Indeed, the pound was
dropping, and we could see a boat coming up the lock further down. With the pound being so wide we were
surprised we were affected but there was nothing for it but to move onto a
pontoon where the water was deeper.
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| Our new mooring at Montbard |
After lunch I took Buddy for a walk while Karen went on a fruit
& veg run to Casino. As expected, it
was a pretty small store and she couldn’t get everything she needed so it meant
we would have a bike ride to an out of town Intermarche later.
While we were out on our walk, I found a post box and posted
a letter that needed to arrive in the UK by next Friday. We are finding letters take about five days
to get to the UK whereas when we were in Italy last summer, they were taking
between two and four weeks!
During the morning I received a call from my son Steve who,
like us, is into Victorian post boxes.
He was really excited as he had come across what was called a carpenter’s
box. In the early postal days, a pane of
glass would be removed from the post office window and replaced with a locally
made, wooden panel with a slot through which letters would be posted and land
in a receptacle inside the post office.
These were later replaced by more technologically advanced boxes like
the one Steve had found. These had an
enamel plate set into the wooden structure as can be seen here:
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| This enamel plate was made by Chromo of Wolverhampton |
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| The post office (the collection plate with times etc. is in the middle window as there is no room on the box!) |
We left Buddy on the boat with all the curtains and blinds
closed so it didn’t get too hot while we cycled to the Intermarche to get the
bits Karen couldn’t get at the Casino.
Fortunately, with the heat, we didn’t have any appreciable hills to
climb.
When we got back, we went for a wander around Montbard
starting with a walk to the top where there are some gardens celebrating famous
French natural historians. The gardens
had been built behind the old town walls and made for a lovely shady peaceful
spot to sit down for a while.
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| Shady walk up to the gardens |
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| Looking over one of the two town cemeteries with the canal in the background |
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| Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton was one of the famous French naturalists (hence the skull in his grasp) |
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| Narrow streets in the medieval part of town |
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| Bridge over the River Brenne |
Once we saw the river, we had to find a way down so that Buddy
could have a cooling down session which he duly did:
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| Main street leading up to the ramparts at the top of the hill |
When we got back from town the only other boat on the
moorings was leaving and we had the place to ourselves apart from a Belgian
couple who had parked their campervan near us. This all changed at about six o’clock as two
hire bumper boats came up the lock and moored up closely followed by two more.
We had dinner on deck and then stayed outside all evening and
enjoyed a game of Private Investigation.
We were sitting opposite each other so could see two different boats
each and they were quickly named: party boat, pizza boat, romantic couple boat
and barbecue boat (for pretty obvious reasons).
We kept each other entertained explaining about the people on board and
their familial or otherwise relationships 😊
On Saturday we cruised six kilometres down three locks.
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