Viéville (bloody contractors)

Morning over Viéville

When Buddy got up on Monday morning the limp that he’d picked up during our walk on Sunday, had improved.  He still seemed a bit stiff so to be on the safe side we didn’t walk him during the day, and he seemed to be more than happy just laying down beside the boat.  He did move every so often to get out of the sun into the shade or back the other way.

An item outstanding from the last blog update was the saga of my residency application which was rejected due to the préfecture being unable to find my paperwork when we had our appointments last week.  On Sunday evening, as well as making a new appointment with the préfecture, I emailed them with a timeline of events ready for challenging their decision.  Early on Monday morning I received an email apologising that they’d mistaken my details for another Neil Payne down in the south and that I should come to the interview I’d arranged for Wednesday and hopefully all would be well.  Amazingly in these days of tight data protection they included this other guy’s details and address in the email. 

During Monday morning a pickup arrived by the mooring and two guys got out and started mowing the grass alongside.  All was well until they started strimming the edges and we realised that the strimmers were sending gravel onto the sides and roofs of the boats.  At least they stopped and moved away from our boat when I pointed out what was happening.  We’ve had this before in the UK where the contractors used by CRT happily mow and strim the towpaths without worrying about chipping paintwork.  Other than the potential damage to boats it can be quite a controversial topic as some people think towpaths should be mown like lawns.  Others, like us, are happy that they are left to be wild or at least cut back at a time that causes the least damage to and for insects etc.  To be fair, our guys may not have been contractors, they may have been local council workers but even so they should’ve taken more care.

As Buddy seemed fine on Tuesday morning, I took him for a longer walk with the aim of seeing the Roche-Bernard from the bottom; this was the cliff we’d visited the top of during our walk on Sunday.  We had to walk through the village of Viéville first where I saw a pair of black swans on a millstream.

Since being moored at Viéville I’d only managed to find one old picture of the village so took a similar shot as we carried on down the main street.

No date for the earlier picture

As we were leaving the village, we passed an alleyway that got my hopes up, ‘Sentier du Lavoir’.  They were immediately dashed, and you can see why:

A cat laying in the path and it wasn’t keen on moving

As we had to return the same way I thought I’d have another go on the way back.  The walk wasn’t entirely fruitless as there were plenty of butterflies out and about and I saw my first common blue of the year.  After about three kilometres we came to the base of the cliff, but it wasn’t the breath-taking view I’d hoped for.  There were so many trees growing on the steep hillside below that the rocks were only just visible.

On Sunday we’d rested at the top where the rocks can just be seen

Walking through the woods was interesting as in one area the woodland floor was covered in flowering lesser periwinkle.  I also came across a plot boundary marker with numbers inscribed on either side so the tree owners knew which plots were theirs.  You may remember Karen remarking that it was just as well the markers we saw a few days ago weren’t numbered otherwise it would give us something else to collect.  Seeing this one made me laugh out loud, but I did refrain from looking for more.

Plot 18 - the other side indicated plot 17

Having given up on getting any decent pictures of the cliffs that didn’t look like I was just close up to a rock we made our way back to the boat.  When walking across open countryside we always keep Buddy on a lead because if he caught sight of an animals or birds like pheasants he would be off.  It was just as well because a group of deer ran across the fields at one point and he was desperate to get after them.  In the woods on Sunday, when he picked up his limp, three deer ran across the path in front of us and he was off.  We should have realised then that he wasn't himself as it was a half hearted attempt and he came back as soon as we called him.

Retracing our steps back to the village

The cat had gone from the path, so we started walking up it to see if there were any traces of a lavoir.  We came across the cat again halfway along and yet again it was reluctant to move which of course started getting Buddy extremely excited.  Once I got it going, I realised it only had three legs hence its unwillingness to move.  Maybe three-legged cats are common in this village as that was the second one in a week that I’d seen.  Anyway, there was no lavoir to be found and as the alleyway ran down to the stream running through the village I wondered if the lavoir had been demolished.  Maybe there never was one, just washing stones lining the side of the stream with no structure above.  We've come across such types before but there was no sign of any vestiges of washing stones either.

The rest of the day was spent lazing around the boat as I seemed to have hurt my back during the morning.  Having avoided serious back problems for a few years now, it’ll hopefully be alright after a good night’s sleep.  There are advantages to resting, for instance I was able to watch a redstart pecking around in the bushes by the boat.  Having never been so close to a redstart for so long before, it made my day.

On Wednesday I had a six o’clock start to drive to Châlons-en-Champagne for my appointment at the préfecture.  I got there soon after eight and was first in the queue and also first to be seen when they opened.  It started as badly as last week as they couldn’t locate my paperwork again.  You can imagine how my stress levels started going up, especially when they repeated that I ‘d already applied elsewhere and therefore couldn’t apply at Châlons.  I patiently explained that it was a case of mistaken identity and showed them the email they sent to me on Monday apologising for the mix up.  After another search my file was found and the lady was full of apologies again. When she explained what had gone wrong, she spoke so fast that I just shut off completely through a lack of understanding and just smiled the best I could with a facemask on.  Sorting out my fingerprints and photographs went smoothly, and I was given my temporary carte de séjour and told the permanent one would be ready in a few weeks.  They’d told Karen last week that the card would be posted to the port at Châlons, but I was told they will ring us when they’re ready because we live on a boat.  We will wait with bated breath to see what it will be.

Walking back to the car, which I’d left in the port, I noticed decorations going up in the streets ready for the tourist season which the town must be hoping will begin soon, but no one really knows when.

Fuchsias in one street

I also came across 11 freshly painted manhole covers around the market halls.  It seems the artist doing these has started up again having not done any last year.  There are now approaching 400 manhole covers that have been painted and we have seen nearly half of them.

The new covers, mainly cats, quite bland and not as colourful as previous paintings

On a walk later in the afternoon Karen and I came across a meadow that seemed to be full of cuckoo flower (aka lady’s smock).  This is one of the food plants favoured by orange tip butterfly caterpillars and its usual habit is to grow along hedgerows and on banks.  It’s not often we’ve seen it growing in such profusion and we wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen dozens of orange tips flying rather than the handful we saw.

Cuckoo flower interspersed with dandelions and cowslips

As we walked along the towpath I said to Karen that it was a day off three weeks since we’d seen another boat on the move.  To which she replied that a commercial went through whilst I was at Châlons and she was out with Buddy.

Perthos heading north through Viéville

I rang VNF in the afternoon to give the requisite two days’ notice of our intention to move on Friday.  We’re going to head for a place called Bologne for the fourth week of lockdown.

Having completed an attestation allowing me to go to the Marne préfecture in Châlons-en-Champagne on Wednesday for state administrative purposes I had to complete another on Thursday afternoon.  This was a different one again as I was travelling to have a Covid vaccination.  I had to travel about 20 kilometres to Chaumont where there was a vaccination centre set up in a sports hall which couldn’t be used for its usual purpose by the Chaumont handball team due to the lockdown.  The whole experience was very efficient and well organised just as it was when I had my first jab in the UK.  I had AstraZeneca in the UK, but it seemed impossible to get the second dose in France, so I had a Pfizer one instead with a second booked in six weeks’ time.  Karen has her first on Saturday so at least I can explain the procedure and make sure she has the correct forms with her.  

I know it doesn’t bother some people, but I get quite self-conscious if I don’t get things right in a public arena.  Sitting in a large hall waiting for my number to be called had the potential for an embarrassing (to me) situation to occur.  The girl calling out the numbers spoke quite quietly and I stupidly had chosen a chair near the back.  I thought of moving closer but had the issue that as moved she may call out instructions to me that everyone but me would understand.  So I was left listening intently for my number and although I knew full well that the French for 184 is “cent quatre-vingt-quatre” I still sat there worrying I would miss it.

Once I was on a one-on-one situation then I was fine, first with a doctor to check my Covid history and then a nurse to do the jab.  I asked the doctor to speak slowly so I could understand him and he even tried a little English with me and, as with a lot of French people, just could not pronounce my name, it always comes out as “knell-le”.  As soon as I mentioned Neil Armstrong, he was fine and as he was typing in my details into his computer he kept repeating my name the English way!

So far, like with the Oxford jab I haven’t had any reaction so hopefully all will be good for cruising to our next location on Friday.  Karen and I also came top in a weekly duplicate bridge session organised by our old club in Tunbridge Wells so I was obviously OK mentally.