Pogny (au revoir Châlons en Champagne)

Boat and car parked up after our first French cruise of 2020

The alarm went off at 2.00am on Thursday giving us half an hour before we had to leave Reading for our early tunnel crossing.  As usual, we were 10 minutes late leaving; it doesn’t seem to matter how much time we allow, we always leave 10 minutes late.  Even if I adjust timings and set the alarm earlier than we need, and then not mention that I have done it, we are still late leaving!

Anyway, we caught the train and arrived in Calais before 6.00am where it was just as grey and drizzly as it was in the UK and we couldn’t believe that the forecast for Châlons en Champagne was sunny and in the low 30s.  It wasn’t long before we were near St Quentin and driving down the canal towpath to meet the girls on Puddleduck.  We unloaded the food items we had brought over for them and were soon settled down with welcome mugs of coffee catching up with their travels since they left Châlons four weeks previously.

Buddy and Bailey were happy to see each other and spent most of their time outside but it did seem Buddy was a bit confused as our boat was nowhere in sight.  We had a fantastic brunch which Gorete described as a Portuguese omelette and then continued on our way to find Chalkhill Blue. By the time we arrived in Châlons the weather had completely changed and was as forecast. We had planned on setting off as soon as we had unpacked the car and then finding a quiet spot outside the town to moor for our first night back.  To be honest we weren’t used to the heat and it wiped us out for the rest of the day, so we decided to stay in the port for the night and set off on Friday instead.

Later in the evening we went for a walk around the parks and couldn’t believe the transformation since we left four weeks ago.  As part of the deconfinement, the parks were opened on the weekend after we left and were now in full summer swing.  All sorts of activities had been set up for the children like large trampolines, sand pits and water pools.  Platforms had been assembled out into the water and made into bars where the adults could sit and watch their offspring having fun in pedalos and canoes etc.  There was also the obligatory champagne bar and sand shipped in to make the Châlons plage – a feature of many riverside towns in France.

Friday dawned cloudy and promised to be a cooler day which, indeed it was, temperatures in the mid-20s all day.  We finally got on the move just before midday, so it was goodbye to Châlons until wintertime.  It felt so good to be on the move even under cloudy skies and it occurred to us that it was 250 days since we were last cruising.  We can’t really count the two months in the winter that we spent on Ken & Annie’s boat Ceilidh as we were prevented from moving far because of the high-water levels.

Leaving Châlons en Champagne on Friday – eight months since we arrived!

We had five kilometres to travel until our first lock and we couldn’t believe how busy it was on the water.  Soon after we got going, two cruisers came up behind and overtook us just before we passed a fully loaded commercial heading in the opposite direction.  We’d forgotten how people over here find the rare sight of a narrowboat fascinating until the guy driving the commercial and his partner came out on deck to take pictures as they crawled slowly past. 

We went up our first French lock since last November and managed without any mishaps.  It wasn’t too deep, so Karen didn’t have to stand on the roof to get the rope looped over a bollard.  This was just as well as it takes a while to get used to balancing on the roof when you’ve not done it for a while.  There were a few bollards above the lock so we stopped for lunch and it wasn’t long before Buddy was in his element.  He had found a fallen branch and spent all lunchtime guarding it beside the boat.

Happy Buddy

During lunch two more boats came through, a motor yacht which looked like it was heading down to the Med followed by a small Dutch barge style boat.  We travelled for a little while after lunch and found somewhere to moor near a village called Chepy.  I decided to cycle back to Châlons to pick up the car and Karen took Buddy for a walk to another village further down the canal called St Germaine la Ville.  I only had 8.5km to cycle which was made easier by the fact this canal has kilometre stones, so I was able to pass the time by counting down along the way.   

The first 60km of our trip this summer is along canals that we travelled last year so It won’t be until we pass St Dizier on the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne before we are in new waters to us.  Until then we will try and stop at new places on the way to get some different experiences which is why Karen walked to the next village while I retrieved the car.  She found that St Germain la Ville was one of those places that display scenes of village life captured in photographs.  There were quite a number of them but here are just a couple:

Outside the mairie which, invariably, is the grandest building in town

Karen was still out by the time I had picked up the car and found some shade to park it in by the mooring, so I walked along the towpath to meet her.

On Friday we cruised just over five miles up one lock.

We had a lazy Saturday morning sitting outside, reflecting on how fortunate we are to be able to live the life we live. We slowly recalled the different aspects of cruising in France, from planning water and shopping stops, exploring town and countryside, through to enjoying the general peace and tranquillity of the waterways.

Our waking up view on Saturday morning

We fancied a walk before lunch so decided to take the car down to Pogny, where we fancied mooring next, and walk back to the boat along the towpath.  Considering how rural the mooring was at Chepy we were surprised how few butterflies there were there, but we were rewarded well during our walk.  As well as many butterflies we encountered more dragonflies than we have seen before so maybe this is a good dragonfly year. We didn’t get a chance to look at many butterflies or dragonflies close up as they weren’t resting long in the full sun.  A fritillary (I'm not sure which type as we couldn't see the underwings), rather worse for wear, did pose for a while though:

Possibly a pearl bordered fritillary but it seems a little late in the year

Back at the boat, we noticed Buddy rolling around in the grass while we were having lunch but what we hadn’t noticed was that he had found a bare patch and was obviously enjoying rubbing his coat in the dirt!

We were just thinking about casting off when I noticed a large butterfly flying past – it caught my interest as it was clearly larger than a large white and I thought it may be a swallowtail.  It settled next to the boat and straight away we realised it was a scarce swallowtail, a butterfly not found in England.  It hadn’t emerged long and its wings were vibrating as they do in the last stages of when their wings uncrumple and stiffen up after emerging.

Our scarce swallowtail

After lunch we set off for Pogny and had a leisurely cruise up just the one lock and, unlike the previous day, we saw no boats on the move; however, it wasn’t a boat-free day as we did see one heading in the opposite direction after we moored up and then a commercial later in the evening.  

Our mooring at Pogny was very close to the River Marne and it seemed all the village children were playing and swimming in the water.  This was judging from the shouts and screams of delight we could hear as we sat outside all afternoon, passing the time of day with people as they walked by.  At one point we were engrossed in our books when we heard a female Scottish voice saying, ‘Hello you two’.  We looked up expecting to see someone we knew but it turned out not to be the case.  Mary introduced herself and was really pleased to be speaking English: a rare treat for her apparently.  She’s married to a French guy who was born and bred in the village and she has lived there for 27 years.

Our mooring at Pogny

During the evening there was the continual sound of a bass thump coming from the river and we assumed it was local teenagers with a ghetto blaster.  As the evening progressed, the sound grew louder and, at 11.00pm, we suddenly realised what was happening.  A firework display started and we had ringside seats; maybe the village was celebrating Bastille Day/French National Day early.  We had a pretty restless night as the music didn't stop until 5.00am and we were reminded of being moored next to a rave on the Seine last year when we couldn't get a wink of sleep until a similar time. 

During Saturday we cruised three miles up one lock.