Cumières (when animals are toys)

Arriving in Cumières on Saturday

We seem to be getting into a routine – having a cruise on Karen’s running days.  It’s probably because Karen runs every other day and we have decided to stay put every other day: obvious really.  Anyway, we set off on Friday morning heading for Reuil which is less (not fewer) than 20 kilometres from Epernay where we will leave the River Marne and join our first canal since we were in Paris.

Our one and only lock of the day was a sloping sided one, our first since the River Yonne back in June.  This was an easy one to negotiate though as it had a floating pontoon to moor on as we went up.

Écluse 3, Vandières, with sloping sides

As we came out of the lock, we saw a neat pile of needle dam needles and as we passed the needle dam itself, we could see the gaps where needles had been removed. 

Neat stack of needle dam needles

The needle dam from the top

Looking closely, you can also see some of the needles to the right-hand side are clearly a lot older than the newer, shinier ones. 

We continued cruising past a few more villages and occasionally noticed camps of caravans and tents starting to assemble ready for the start of the grape picking.  Apparently 120,000 people arrive during the vendange to pick the grapes of which 100,000 are put up by the champagne houses in their outbuildings or the makeshift camps on their land.  The majority of the rest are allocated separate areas in municipal campsites.

The grape pickers operate in teams or ‘hordons’ of four per hectare and this was pleasing to find out.  The reason being is that we know for a fact that by law there are currently 34,300 hectares of AOC champagne vineyards so multiply that by the four and the estimate of 120,000 must be about right.

When we did our road trip of France & Italy last year we stayed at a couple of campsites where the pickers were also staying.  To be honest they were really crammed in, but I suppose it’s only for a few weeks.  No doubt they spend a lot of the year touring Europe through the different grape and fruit picking harvests so accept it as a way of life anyway. 

Once again it was a clear and sunny day and the views still continued to delight us.

Approaching Vincelles

We found a pontoon to moor on for lunch at Port-à-Binson.  We were only a few kilometres from Reuil so thought about staying for the rest of the day.  In the end we set off again, knowing we could always return if the pontoon mooring at Reuil was taken.

Moored for lunch at Port-à-Binson

Mike rang us during lunch and, after our general weekly catch up on things, he mentioned he had something to tell us.  When he had read in our blog about us not knowing which side of the locks the controls were on, he knew the answer.  The guidebooks have a coloured circle against each lock with each colour indicating a different type of operation, e.g. green = operated by éclusiers, blue = automatic operated by boater etc.  Mike pointed out that these circles are always placed on the side of the lock that the controls or control towers are on.  Simple – as long as the guidebook is accurate.

When we arrived at Reuil we saw the pontoon was free so moored up and got the chairs out to sit in the shade for a while.

Moored at Reuil on Friday evening

Later in the afternoon we went for a walk around the village which, from the map, looked quite small.  Indeed, it was and, apart from the mairie, church and private housing there were a dozen or so champagne houses and nothing else.

The centre of Reuil

We were fortunate to find a wash house, and this was the first we have come across where the ladies would have stood to do their washing.  For this reason, I will include a picture of it.

Our first ‘stand-up’ lavoir

As the village only had a few streets it didn’t take long to walk them all, so we also went for a walk along the river.  Karen had read that there was an area set out for stuffed animals, so we set off in search of it.  After walking past some allotments, we saw a sign welcoming us to the garden of peluches and realised that the report of stuffed animals wasn’t a good translation as it really should have said soft toys 😉

Le jardin des peluches

We had been wondering when the vendange will start this year and after perusing the internet later I paraphrased the latest statement from the Interprofessional Committee of Champagne Wine (CIVC):

After the particularly early harvest of 2018, the 2019 harvest is expected to start on 10th September for 7 to 10 days. Following an exceptional 2018 harvest, 2019 looks less good both in quantity and quality. Spring frosts affected 5,000 hectares, of which 1,000 were completely destroyed. The champagne reserve, made up of wines from previous years, should make it possible to offset a possible deficit.

Not surprisingly, their statement also includes a piece on the impact on exports due to Brexit and the continuing decline in the French market.  For those interested, the full statement can be found by clicking here. 

On Friday we travelled 17 kilometres up one lock.

After saying we’ve got into a routine of moving every other day, we moved again on Saturday!  During the morning we decided there was no more to see in Reuil and we didn’t feel it would be sensible having a long walk in the heat so instead we would move a few kilometres further upstream.  We also knew we would need a few things like lettuce by Sunday and Reuil didn’t have any shops.

We soon arrived at the first lock, which would be the last one where we would have to use the télécommande.  For some reason we couldn’t get the lock to recognise our presence when we used the télécommande.  We tried several times before deciding to give up and look for a place to moor while we decided what to do.

The lock moorings were only suitable for commercials but we got ourselves tied up to the pilings and Karen climbed up the ladder so she could walk up to the lock to see if she could sort things out.

Moored while we sorted out the lock

As you can see, these sort of moorings are no good if you have a narrowboat and a dog as there is no way we could get Buddy off if we wanted to stay on one overnight.  There was no one around at the lock so Karen, seeing a VNF van at the lock cottage, knocked on the door.  It took her a few attempts to get a response, but finally an éclusier opened the door, having obviously just got out of bed.  He was most apologetic and soon got the lock emptying and by the time Karen was back on the boat, the gates were opening.

It was another sloping sided lock, but it had a sliding pontoon, so we were soon tied up safely.  We saw the éclusier at what looked like a control panel on the side of the lock, so we waited for the gates to close and the ground paddles to open.  In the end we thought something else was wrong as nothing happened.  It was then that the éclusier told us that we would have to continue the operation ourselves.  The boaters’ controls were on the pontoon, so Karen got off and set the lock operation in motion and all was well.

After one more lock we were approaching Cumières and could see the pontoon was free, so we moored up just in time to have lunch.

Moored at Cumières

After lunch we went for a walk around the town and were surprised at the number of tourists.  There were a couple of Belgian tour coaches parked in the car park together with quite a few German and Belgian cars.  Karen had done some investigation before we arrived and had found that the next village was meant to be the prettiest in Champagne so maybe that was the reason for the larger number of tourists than we’re used to seeing.

The pretty village is called Hautvillers and is a few kilometres up a hill.  It was too hot to walk up there today as it was already the heat of the afternoon so we will probably walk up there early on Sunday morning.  It’ll be interesting to see how it stacks up to its epithet though.  We remember going to one of the top 20 prettiest villages in Burgundy only to find it was 19^th on the list of only 117 villages that were compared: mind you it was a lovely village.

As we walked around the town, we realised it wasn’t much larger than Reuil that we had left in the morning, but it did have a village shop, so we were able to pick up the salad stuff we needed.  Once again there were about a dozen champagne houses.

Not such a pretentious champagne house for a change

As we walked around the town, we came across a Rue du Lavoir but, even though we walked up and down the street we couldn’t find a lavoir.  It had either been demolished or converted into a dwelling ☹

The church in Cumières

When we got back to the boat, we went swimming to have a cool down.  As many of you know, I’m not really a swimmer and can just about manage a sort of breaststroke. 

Just to prove I can swim

Neither of us touched the bottom so it was obviously pretty deep but what we hadn’t realised was the strength of the current.  It took me ages to swim against the current and get from one end of the boat to the other.  Karen, of course, did it with the greatest of ease.  Buddy wasn’t happy when we were both in the water and was constantly running up and down the pontoon to check on us.

Karen enjoying her swim too

In the past I have said that we have been extremely happy with our new boat and wouldn’t have changed any of our design.  Of course, there have been a few minor items like having 12 volt plugs in a couple of different places but nothing major.  Since being in the heat over here though we have really noticed that having a dark roof on a steel boat wasn’t a good idea.  It was fine in the UK, even in the hot summer last year but we are paying for it over here.  I mention this as I know a few people follow the blog who are planning to move over to the mainland with their boat and if they’re having one built or repainted than they should seriously consider having a light coloured roof.

On Saturday we cruised 5.5 kilometres up two locks.