Blagny-Tronville (caught out by local restrictions)

Having spent three nights in Corbie we thought on Monday we’d move on.  Before leaving we still had the town tour to do, following the map supplied by the tourist office.  Unlike the leaflet we used for Sunday’s circular walk, this one actually had places of interest at the points indicated by the numbers, although we did find that some of the translations were a little too literal.  We started at the hôtel de ville which was built as a private château in 1850 and became Corbie’s mairie in 1923.

Corbie's corbies

One of the stone shields on the front of the building depicted a raven.  We didn’t realise until we found out later that a corbie is the Scottish generic word for a rook, raven or crow. 

We walked through three large squares but all of them were being used as car parks so had no sense of peacefulness.  The largest was the market square which has housed a market since the eighth century.  On one side of that square was the ‘monumental door’ as the guide leaflet described the gateway to the abbey.  A great many of the translations left something to be desired which added to our fun; maybe a good reason not to employ a native speaker to proofread translations?

The ‘monumental door’ built in 1740

The abbey was very large in proportion to the size of Corbie and apparently housed 300 monks in its early days.  As it was tightly surrounded by houses and shops it wasn’t easy to see the whole building in one shot.

The trail seemed to have a religious bent as there were other churches to see too.  We were more interested in finding the old hospice and the Spanish seat, whatever that was.  It turned out that the Spanish seat was another mistranslation. It was referring to the last remaining section of the town’s defensive wall.

All that’s left of the town wall

It was almost completely destroyed by the Spanish when they laid siege to the town in 1636.  Siège is a French word for chair, hence the mistranslation to Spanish seat.

Opposite the walls we found a large stream running alongside a row of old houses.  It was quite charming as there were many stone bridges crossing it as it ran through town.  We went off piste for a while in search of lavoirs but there were none to be found so we re-joined the trail.  I found out later that the stream was called the Boulangerie and was channelled through town by the monks in the seventh century to supply drinking water.

The last item on the trail was the town’s original hospice but we were rather disappointed when we found the plaque at the site.  All that remains is a short piece of wall that is now part of the boundary of a private house; the hospice being totally destroyed by bombardment in 1918.

One thing that did fascinate us was caricatures of dogs on the pavements in the towns.  We haven’t been able to work out why they were there so if anyone can help please get in touch. 

They were on both sides of streets so we didn’t think they were indicating which side dogs should walk.  They didn’t seem to be dog crossing points either as, even though a large proportion were opposite each other, they weren’t always in pairs.  Our preference is that they are indicating that dogs should wee in the gutter.  The yellow kerb in the picture was only present in the picture we took by the way.

On the way back to the boat we agreed we fancied moving on a little way so called the control centre for an éclusier to come and operate the town lock for us ready for when we got back. 

The style of floral displays in Corbie

By the time we got the boat ready and set off, the lock was being set.  Karen and Buddy got off as we went in as they were going to walk to where we wanted to moor next as it was only three or four kilometres away.  The éclusier shut the top gates but didn’t start letting the water out.  He chatted with me for a while about our plans for the rest of the year and then started talking to a French guy who was watching us pass through the lock. After a while he came back to me and asked how long my wife would be; he’d assumed she was coming back to the boat, so I explained that she was walking the dog and not coming with us. He started letting the water out, but it was probably the slowest lock we’ve ever encountered as it seemed to take forever to empty.

I didn’t have far to travel and after half an hour saw Karen ahead at the mooring in Aubigny.

Arriving in Aubigny

The mooring was just our size and seemed perfect.  There was a large willow tree in front that looked like it would give us shade in the evening.

Moored at Aubigny

As you can see, we had our own kilometre stone too!  We were at the village park and, like so many villages, a purpose-built barbecue had been erected so we took advantage of it. As expected, the boat was in welcome shade by six o’clock so had started cooling down by the time we went indoors later.

On Monday we cruised two miles down one lock.

Although we’d moored in what we thought was a lovely quiet spot on Monday afternoon, we were woken up fairly regularly during the night when something in a nearby processing plant kept firing up. Reading up on the village on Tuesday morning we found it was a large factory belonging to Nestlé Purina where pet food is manufactured and made a note not to stay at the same spot on the return journey.

With yet another day forecast to be in the low 30s we explored the village early in the morning so we could get on the move and moor up somewhere new before lunch.  Aubigny was built around four streets, one lined with older houses and farms and the other three with modern housing probably homes to many of the people working at the factory and associated development laboratory.

The Nestlé Purina plant

Many village mairies we see originally had schools as part of the building and often the signs indicating the separate sections for boys and girls can still be seen. Strangely, the mairie in Aubigny only seemed to have had provision for boys.

The mairie in Aubigny

Just behind the mairie was a tiny commonwealth war cemetery housing 87 Australian and 10 British WW1 soldiers.  All but one were named and the vast majority were aged between 18 and 25.

When we returned, we made the daily call to ask for an éclusier and set off for a little cruise.  Nearly all the waterway is now on the river with just short lock cuts.  This makes it more windy, as in bendy, than we’ve been used to and with a couple of very rarely seen brick chimneys we would have been excused for thinking we were back in the UK.

Reminiscent of cruising in the UK

Re-joining the River Somme after emerging from a lock cut

After passing through the lock we came alongside a large factory complex where potato starch is produced.  Potatoes are the source product, and these used to be brought in by barges until the canal was closed to commercial traffic.

The quay where the commercials used to moor

Nowadays, the potatoes are brought in by lorry and we found this quite sad as most silos we have seen on the canals still load up barges with their grain, even if they also fill lorries.  This factory is the largest of only two factories in France that produce potato starch whose main culinary use is as a thickener.  It is also now increasingly being used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.

Two piles of potatoes and a lorry unloading more

As we are getting further downstream on the River Somme, we're noticing that the flow is slowly increasing.  This is most obvious when we’re sitting by river in the evenings watching young waterfowl struggling against the current.

Can’t really tell but the flow is increasing  

We moored on a 20-metre quay near Blangy-Tronville and this time we knew it would be really quiet as there were no roads passing nearby and definitely no sign of factories. After lunching at the boat, we went off to find a marked circular walk around the bogs (marais) of the area that we’d read about. We started by walking into the village and when we arrived near the square in the centre, we saw official looking signs pinned to the trees. The mairie had ordered that from 14th August everyone walking outside in the village must wear masks. We know that local areas can elect to have rules stricter than those in force for the département, but this was the first time we’d seen it in action.

As we were in a lower risk département we hadn’t bothered to take masks with us on the walk.  It certainly taught us a lesson and we will be sure to carry a couple of masks with us at all times even if we have no intention of going inside buildings or into town centres. We went back towards the boat and found a shorter walk instead. We will probably go out first thing on Wednesday to try again, making sure that we take masks with us.

Moored at Blangy-Tronville for Tuesday night

It seemed we'd chosen another ideal location as far as the sun was concerned as the boat was completely in the shade by six again which also made it very pleasant sitting outside.  As well as the occasional cyclists and walkers passing by during the evening a van turned up and three guys got out in wet suits and proceeded to don their breathing gear that was stored in the back of their van.  They then walked along the towpath until they were out of distance.  

About an hour later one of them arrived back and, as we were keen to find out what they'd been doing, I tried chatting with him. His English was non-existent as was my diving related French so we didn't find out much.  A bit later on the second guy returned and he had a bit of English and was also keen to understand about narrowboats so we were able to converse in that strange way where the choice of language changes several times in a sentence.  They were keen divers and liked to spend time in the local canals and rivers searching amongst the debris laying at the bottom.  Other than loads of expected bottles they found nothing of interest during their search along the river bed. 

Number three returning

On Tuesday we cruised four miles down one lock.