Ablancourt (lock jumping and hopping)

The warmer weather is finally back but there has still been the odd frost causing us to bring the spring plants into shelter overnight.  We also know the warmer weather has returned because plenty of butterflies have re-appeared.  During our Tuesday lunchtime walk we revisited Ablancourt and couldn’t believe the number of brimstone butterflies we saw.  Most of the time we had three or four in view and, around one patch of cowslips we counted seven.  All were the bright yellowy-lemon coloured males so no doubt the females are still to emerge from hibernation.

Coupled with the warmer weather there has been a marked drop in the wind to the point where there’s hardly a breeze.  The still weather reminded me of those early days when we started living aboard and I used to take upside down pictures in the evenings, generally with our glasses of wine reflected from the gunwales.  No wine glasses on Tuesday evening, our last night in La Chaussée-sur-Marne:   

First upside down picture for a while

One thing we’ve noticed about our mooring at La Chaussée-sur-Marne over the last week is the paucity of waterfowl.  It’s very open, so we’re not surprised that we haven’t seen kingfishers (no, they're not waterfowl), and the only waterfowl we’ve seen have been in transit other than a lone cormorant that keeps swaggering outside the boat showing us how to fish.  The river Marne runs just the other side of the canal and no doubt the kingfishers are down there as the tree-lined banks are ideal territory. When we were cruising on the river Marne itself, we called it the kingfisher river as, like the Bristol river Avon, they seemed to be the most common bird.

Ablancourt looking better in the sun than the grey of last week’s visit

Wednesday was water day, so we set off back to Pogny around 7.30 in the morning.  As we had to spin the boat around, we were going downstream which meant that Karen didn’t need to be on board for the locks.  The locks are so benign on this canal when going downhill that we don’t need lines and just hover in the middle of the lock as it drains.  This meant Karen could give Buddy his morning walk as I took the boat the 3km back to Pogny.  We don't have the issue of finding winding holes to spin the boat around as French canals tend to be wide enough to wind a boat of our length.

Doing a 'Suez'? 

Leaving La Chaussée-sur-Marne early on Wednesday morning

After mooring at Pogny, Karen went for a run while I did the domestic chores like filling up with water and disposing of our rubbish.  Two commercials came past while we were moored there, and each passed back again about fifteen minutes later.  They were about to take on grain at the Pogny silos and had to spin their boats in the winding hole the other side of the village so they would be heading back downstream once full.  After lunch we set off back the way we'd come earlier, and it was lovely to still have glorious sunshine bringing out the butterflies along the banks.

That’s a large winding hole

As we went back through La Chaussée-sur-Marne, Buddy and Karen got off to take the car to Ablancourt where we planned to stay for a couple of days.  As she arrived before I got there, they walked down the towpath to meet me.  We went up the lock with an audience of two families out with their dogs and children but, rather embarrassingly, the gates refused to open once we had risen up.  Karen went to investigate and could hear machinery whirring so started jumping up and down on the lefthand lock gate.  This was a trick we’ve learnt before and usually works and saves a call to VNF.  It didn’t seem to work this time so she crossed to the other gate and repeated her jumping; the gates immediately started opening and, much to the gongoozlers merriment, Karen had to leap the gap that was quickly increasing in order to get back to the boat.

We pulled up just the other side of the lock (we’d checked there were moorings there the other day) and moored up for the rest of the day.  Normally, lock landings aren’t suitable for us as the bollards are for commercials and therefore too far apart.  We’d noticed that the lock landings at this end of the canal also have a couple of bollards conveniently spaced for us.  In the UK, continuous cruisers who keep cars with them are known as bridge hoppers.  At many rural canal bridges, unofficial laybys have formed by bridge hoppers and walkers parking their cars.  It’s a lot easier to bridge hop in the UK as boats can generally be moored anywhere once out of towns.  Over here moorings are normally only available at lock landings, ports in towns and wild moorings.  Wild moorings are obviously our favourite, but they are few and far between.  Anyway, the point of this ramble is that while we’re keeping the car with us we’re calling ourselves lock hoppers rather than bridge hoppers. 

Our new mooring at Ablancourt

With the apparent worsening of the virus situation in France we’re now having to factor in what we would do if there was another national lockdown. At the moment we could still get back to Châlons-en-Champagne which has its pros and cons. It’s a place we know well because we’ve already spent a lockdown there but do we really want to spend another few months there when the main reason for being over here is to visit different places?  So now we also need to look ahead and consider places we wouldn’t mind staying in during another confinement.  

On Wednesday we cruised six miles through three locks although we went in the opposite direction to start with so actually only progressed two miles and one lock from where we started.