Châlons-en-Champagne (the lizards are out)

Sun about to rise over our new mooring

After I got out of the shower on Sunday morning, I noticed the water pump hadn’t stopped running and Karen’s immediate reaction was that we had run out of water.  As we had only filled up three days previously, I thought that this wasn’t possible unless there had been a leak.  With no sign of a leak my immediate thought was that a pressure switch had failed.  The simplest solution was to replace the whole unit with the spare we carry.  As I got ready to do this, Karen mentioned the possibility of an empty tank again, so I checked the level and yes, she was right, we were bone dry!

With the paucity of water points on the French waterways we have got used to making a tank last at least a couple of weeks so we couldn’t believe we had used a tankful (150 gallons - 680 litres) in such a short space of time.  When we thought about it, we soon realised why; being moored in the port we have water on tap, so to speak, as we have our hose permanently attached to our own water point so it's very easy to fill up.  This does stop us being frugal – e.g. long showers, plenty of washing up water, running the washing machine and not using water from the cut to flush the loo.  Ironically, we found out later in the morning that the laundry facilities in the port were free so we could have been using their ‘industrial’ washing machine 😉

Although the weather is beginning to warm up, we have had quite a bit of rain this last week so there is little sign of the river levels abating.  Our neighbours keep joking that we seem to have brought the rain back with us from the UK.  Last week Nikki had taken a picture of the mooring at Cumières on the River Marne where we had spent a few days last summer.  Her picture showed the pontoon had risen nearly to the top of the flood dolphins.  In the summer the dolphins had flower baskets at the top and the council workers had to use a ladder to water them.  Nikki’s picture also showed that the ramp that normally leads down to the pontoon was at the same angle but leading up rather than down!

Last September & last week

To be fair we’ve had more sun than rain this week and the outlook is a lot drier.  We feel the change between winter and spring is the most exciting of the seasonal changes and, like many people, love seeing the hawthorn leaves emerging and the white blossom of blackthorn.  In the UK we would probably have seen the first spring butterflies by now, but we haven’t seen any in France yet.  We noticed last year that there doesn’t appear to be the volume of butterflies over here that are back home.  It doesn’t stop us constantly looking though as we go on our regular walks.

 

We have seen lizards that have woken up from winter hibernation, so we know things are changing.  Listening to the dawn chorus in bed is another sign of spring, although the courting Canada geese are rather raucous and not such a pleasant sound especially as the number of pairs are increasing daily around us (they are not our favourite bird 😉).  I mentioned the other day about the heronry being built on the island opposite; the same island is now host to a dozen cormorants that can be seen gathering at the top of two of the trees.  We also came across another harbinger of spring this week, some lovely patches of wild garlic in the woods down by the Marne.

One of our walks takes us through the Jard Anglais which has a grassy dip in the centre where, in good weather, families and groups are seen picnicking and playing games.  The recent rains have filled in the dip and the water is almost up to the bottom of an ornamental wooden bridge that crosses it.

A week ago, this was all grass covered in spring flowers such as crocuses

That particular walk brings us back to the port by crossing the lock at the entrance.  Even with the high water levels its been good to see commercials on the move.  We have even seen a couple of Piper boats coming through.  Pipers are a brand of modern pleasure boats built in the Dutch barge style and the two we saw were off to St Jean de Losne for a gathering of Piper boats at the end of April.

Commercial on its way up the lock in Châlons-en-Champagne

A trip to the fuel station to fill the jerry cans with diesel means that we are nearly ready to leave, all that remains to be done is to change the two diesel filters.  It’s a job I procrastinate about and I’m still finding reasons to put it off, but the time has really come to get the job done in the next few days.  Oh yes, and we may as well take advantage of the port laundry and wash all the ropes and side fenders too.

As we were out in the car getting diesel, we called into a garden centre to pick up some compost and spring flowers then spent a pleasant hour in the afternoon sun potting them up.  Writing this sentence has made me realise that there is one other thing to do before we set off cruising – move the car to a safe place until we pop back to the UK in August.

After finding yet more decorated manhole covers around the town last week, we were surprised to find yet eight more on Wednesday and a further seven on Thursday, bringing the total to 65 (click here).  We really had thought that we had found them all and cannot think of any streets we haven’t walked along in town.  We must have walked past or over many of the recent ones before but somehow not noticed them 😲

While having drinks with the girls on Wednesday evening they suggested we swap our boats around and we immediately agreed.  They have been moored at the end all winter and, as their boat is so tall, it has hidden the view and the morning sun from us.  By swapping positions, we will both get the view and the sun as they don’t really see our boat from their raised living area.  We agreed to move the boats first thing in the morning, but we awoke to wind and rain so decided to delay the move.  We didn’t have to wait too long as the day brightened up by mid-morning so we started the engines, disconnected the water hoses and the electric hook up cabling and set off.

The girls moved away first and waited down near the lock whilst we completed our manoeuvring

I then pulled out and reversed back to the other side of the pontoon

We were soon snugly moored up again

We couldn’t believe what a difference it made; we now have a lovely uninterrupted view across the Grand Jard.  We are also in a much better position to watch the herons flying into the island with their nest building material.

It seems we can't ignore the Corona virus even in our cocoon of a narrowboat.  What with Macron's speech last night and many boaters having already decided to cancel their plans to come over to France to cruise this year, there will be a lot of empty boats and waterways ☹ No doubt it will be mentioned in the next update,