Bourg-et-Comin (Squaring the circle)

With a sunny day forecast for Friday we set off relatively early for our next mooring spot which was at Cys-la-Commune.  As places to tie up for the night are few and far between on this canal we thought we'd stop at each one to make sure we don't miss out on any of the sights.  Cys-la-Commune was only a few kilometres and one lock away, so Karen and Buddy walked to meet me there.  The mooring was another commercial waiting quay like the one we were leaving but this one has recently been repaired and made good for pleasure boats.

Our Friday mooring below the lock at Cys-la-Commune

Once we'd reached Cys-la-Commune there was still plenty of time before lunch, so we went for a walk to a village called Chavonne.  The village was up on a hill the other side of the River Aisne which was about a kilometre away from the canal..

Looking from our mooring over the Aisne valley where Chavonne was somewhere on the hill

The road to the village was wide enough for two vehicles to pass other than on the bridge over the Aisne where it became narrow and even cars would struggle to get past pedestrians.  As the bridge was quite long and we had Buddy with us meant we had to make sure there was nothing coming before venturing onto it.

Guess what these trees are lining the road into the village

No traffic passed us all the way to the bridge but as our luck would have it, we could hear a tractor coming as we started to cross. We could see it had some wide spray equipment mounted on the back so quickly ran back to the start of the bridge as Buddy would freak out having a large tractor passing him at such close range.  Coincidentally the same thing happened on the return crossing.    

On our way to the top of the village we passed several troughs that had running water, so we were hopeful of finding a stream-fed lavoir.  The church and cemetery were near the top of the hill as tends to be the case with christian based religions although some of the other religions also built places of worship nearer where they believed their god or gods were.

Church at the highest point

Of course, this approach backfired during times of pandemics and epidemics.  Rainwater brought some of the infections back into the community below as it leached through the infected people buried at the top.

The mairie, as usual, was one of the largest buildings but didn’t have the good display of flowers we’ve come to expect.

Poor flower display at the mairie

Opposite the mairie was a small building sporting an extensive display of flowers, both inside and out.  We knew as soon as we saw it that this building would be a lavoir as indeed it was.

The lavoir in Chavonne

Strangely, considering the number of troughs we saw with running water, the washing basin was dry.  As you can see, there was even a trough with running water outside the lavoir. Things aren’t really going our way in terms of finding somewhere to wash our clothes – two misleading street names followed by a dry lavoir in three days don’t really help😉  An enterprising villager had arranged for the book swap stall to be placed in the lavoir to keep it away from the elements.

Inside the lavoir

We spent much of the afternoon planning our next five or six weeks before we go back to the UK for a couple of months.  We are assuming we will be able to get back and accept we will have to stay hidden for 14 days when we arrive.  We also started attacking the growing list of tasks that will enable us to legally cruise in mainland Europe in the post Brexit world. 

On Friday we cruised two miles up one lock.

We only had four miles to get to our next mooring, Bourg-et-Comin, on Saturday, so Karen and Buddy set off to walk it.  The plan didn’t quite work out as just after halfway the path petered out, so I had to pull in to let them on.  St-Mard was the only village we passed on the way and it helped prove my point about the church at Chavonne being built at the highest point.  

St-Mard

After coming up the second lock we were at Bourg-et-Comin where the Canal de l’Oise à l’Aisne heads off to the north.  We turned onto the canal to moor at a pontoon just up from the junction. 

The pontoon at Bourg-et-Comin

It was eight weeks ago that we were at Bourg-et-Comin to start a large ring of canals with a detour along the Somme and back.  We’d been around the ring in an anticlockwise direction covering 375 miles through 120 locks.  Even though the northern part of the ring consisted of heavy commercial canals we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the journey.  We would recommend it to other boaters as the mix of rivers and quiet and busy canals coupled with the variety of scenery and history means that there is so much to see and learn.  Of course, we have also been very lucky with the weather again this year.

The map below shows our travels since deconfinement and the green flag is Bourg-et-Comin which is where we are at the moment and marks the bottom of the ring we’ve just completed.

Our travels since deconfinement

In the afternoon we walked to the village of Moussy-Verneuil which was about three miles away.  Much of it was along the Canal de l’Oise à l’Aisne and as we walked along, we reminisced about how we felt eight weeks ago when we were cruising up the canal for the first time.  We particularly remembered how narrowboat-unfriendly the locks were; lack of bollards to tie to and controls that were really difficult to reach.  We loved it all of course especially, as it brought home how each canal has its own house style in terms of lock design as well as the general look and feel of the cut itself.

Buddy quenching his thirst during our walk

We particularly remembered that during the six days we were on the 30-mile long canal, we only saw two other boats, and both were commercials.  It was quite different today as four commercials had already passed us while we were having lunch after mooring up. 

We struck lucky outside the boundary of the village and found a pretty lavoir. Considering the washing process took four days there must have been a lot of fetching and carrying as it was outside the village rather than being in the centre.

'Out of town' location for the lavoir in Moussy-Verneuil

It had two washing stone lined basins, one of which was a lot larger than the other.  The fireplace was still in evidence too; the ash from wood fires was used during the washing cycle. 

When we got back, much of the washing we’d left out to dry in the sun was ready. As there was free water and electricity at the pontoon we hooked up and put the fan heater on to dry the rest indoors.

On Saturday we cruised four miles up two locks.