 |
| Just what’s going on here? |
By the time we got out to get the gas it was lunchtime so
all the garages that remained open, reverted to self service only for the rest
of the day as it was Sunday. That meant
that getting gas wasn’t possible but at least we filled up the car and one
jerry can with diesel.
We were having lunch on the back of the boat when we saw a
Piper boat coming down the river towards us.
We soon realised it was Ade & Rose who we have bumped into several
times already this year starting with our very first night after
setting off at the end of March. We had
a quick catch up and exchanged our latest cruising stories but then we had to
get off as it was nearly time to visit a local Brie exhibition where a tasting
is offered at 3.30pm every day. The Brie
made in this area is protected under the AOP scheme and is known as Brie de
Meaux.
The exhibition was informative, and we tasted a delicious
local ten-week-old Brie de Meaux followed by a Brie Noir. The Brie Noir is aged for at least two years
and, as the name suggests looks black. I
would say that over half the people who tried it found it too rancid, but I
suspect it’s just one of those tastes that has to be acquired.
 |
| The tasting |
When we returned to the boat, we saw our American
neighbours, Dave & Pat, were still moored next to us. They have had a series of misfortunes with
their engine and batteries and been stuck in Meaux for over four weeks whilst
things have been sorted. An engineer was
sorting out their last problem when we left for the cheese tasting but a
further transmission problem had arisen so it looked like they would be stuck
there a while longer.
Our neighbours on the other side, Diane & Lenny on their
Piper, invited all four couples who were moored in Meaux, around for a barbeque
on the Monday. As we would be back in
the UK, we went around to them for a few drinks in the evening instead.
 |
| Diane & Lenny’s boat rather dwarfing ours |
Monday was an early start for us, and I brought the car down
to the moorings for the most important job – packing all the plants in the car! Yes, I know most of you will think we are mad,
but the plants would just die if left for a week without water in the heat. When we came back in June we were fortunate
that Ian & Lisette, who we were moored next to us, watered our plants each
day but no such luck this time - everyone was leaving in the next couple of days ☹
|
| Are we mad? |
The plan was to drop them with Karen’s mum, who lives in
Wendover, on our way up to Yorkshire.
Ann would make sure they were watered and looked after ready for our
return.
We arrived at the tunnel in plenty of time and Buddy was the
187th pet to have been checked in that morning. We were offered a crossing at 11.20, an hour
earlier than the one we had booked, so snapped it up. We soon had a hitch though; my passport
couldn’t be found and, in the end, the French passport control guy waved us
through. After a bit of thinking we thought we would be daft to carry on as we
wouldn’t be able to get out of the UK to come home so pulled up at the side to
decide what to do.
We were just about to find someone to let us out so we could
drive back to Meaux to look on the boat when Karen suddenly found it between
the seats. You know what it’s like when
you’re in a panic looking for something – however many times you look, it just
cannot be found. By this time, we had
missed the train but were allowed on one 20 minutes later, so were still
earlier than planned.
The other good thing was that I suddenly saw my French debit
card in the footwell, it had been missing for about a month. It must have been in my passport and fallen
out when we retrieved it from beside the seat!
As we were queueing to board the train, we saw a gull
walking up and down the queue. We
weren’t sure what is was after, but it was desperately trying to undo a number
plate retaining screw off the car in front of us.
 |
Sevenoaks seemed a bit of a goldmine for Victorian post
boxes and we found plenty of examples. One
road, called Pillar Box Lane, yielded an oversized wall box. There were no houses around so we found it
especially strange that there was such a large box there.
 |
| With Karen for scale |
Our daughter, Sophie, said it looked like there should be a
large pile of letters the other side 😉
There was an old post office at the bottom end of the high
street and that gave us a really good example of one of the earliest types of
post box, called a Ludlow box. This one
was even more interesting, because even though it had the VR cypher, the enamel
plating had been replaced at some point with a GR cypher. Plain GR cyphers always refer to George V who
succeeded Victoria but George VI boxes have the cypher GviR.
 |
| The Victorian Ludlow with a VR inscription and a GR enamel plate |
 |
| The old post office with the Ludlow to the right of the door |
We left Ann’s on Tuesday morning and set off for Yorkshire,
stopping near Leamington Spa on the way for an appointment. Once on the M1 the rain started and it was
really heavy, the sort that normally lasts about 10 minutes. This was different and it didn’t ease up
until we got to Bradford, maybe the rainstorm was following us the whole
way. Neither of us have been in such
heavy rain for so long. We were also
fortunate that it didn’t cause any accidents on the motorway either.
We visited my dad when we arrived in Gargrave and spent most
of Wednesday sorting stuff out for the camping trip. As so many of our family go, we arrange all
the food to make things easier and avoid over purchasing or, worse, ending up
without important items. When I say ‘we
arrange’ I really mean ‘Karen arranges’; without her organizational ability I
wouldn’t have a hope of getting the family together, let alone eat at these sort of events!
While Karen did all the food shopping in Skipton I took Buddy for a walk along the Leeds & Liverpool canal. It really felt quite strange seeing a narrow canal, especially the bridges. It felt like we had been away for a couple of years rather than just the four months so far. There were plenty of butterflies on the wing even though it was very overcast and I even managed to get a picture of a meadow brown at rest with its wings open which is quite unusual for this butterfly.
We had our car's MoT carried out at the village garage who lent us their courtesy car for the day as we had lots of errands to run. Coincidentally their courtesy car is my dad's old car that they bought from him when he went into his care home and was no longer able to drive.
While Karen did all the food shopping in Skipton I took Buddy for a walk along the Leeds & Liverpool canal. It really felt quite strange seeing a narrow canal, especially the bridges. It felt like we had been away for a couple of years rather than just the four months so far. There were plenty of butterflies on the wing even though it was very overcast and I even managed to get a picture of a meadow brown at rest with its wings open which is quite unusual for this butterfly.
 |
| Female meadow brown |
We finally received the expected email
from VNF during the day confirming that the Canal du Centre will be closing from 6th August
due to lack of water. We need to travel along the length of this
canal from Chalon-sur-Saône to Digoin in order to reach the Roanne à Digoin Canal
to get to our winter moorings in November.
As also expected, they indicated that they hope to open it for escorted convoys in
October to enable boats to reach their winter moorings. This is of course dependent upon getting an
appropriate amount of rainfall by then.
No comments:
Post a Comment