Gargrave (Flowers, Brie & a Ludlow)

Just what’s going on here?

Sunday was our last day before going back to the UK for a short break.  Other than packing we had two main things to do: get a replacement gas bottle and visit the Brie de Meaux exhibition.

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 187^th 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.

  

Once we were back in Kent we popped in on our friends Pete & Val for a while, had a nose at our house to make sure it was being well looked after and then did a spot of VR boxing on our way to the dreaded M25 and our journey up to Wendover.

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

After scouring Sevenoaks, we headed for the M25 and made our way up to the junction with the A41 and then onto Wendover where we stayed with Ann for the night.

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.

  Female meadow brown

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.

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.