Vouécourt (a cruise in the rain)

There was a sharp frost on Tuesday night, and we had to be careful on the wooden decking by the boat as it was very slippery.  The sun soon came out and burnt it all off, causing a lot of mist to rise from the cut.

Wednesday morning

Looking at the picture above I can tell it was taken at 7.40 French time because that’s the time the lady on the towpath on the far side walks by every day.  She also feeds old bits of baguette to the few mallards that are around.  It’s not such a popular pastime over here as it seems to be in the UK which is probably one reason we see so few waterfowl on our travels.

It felt cold again on Wednesday evening and we awoke to a smattering of snow on Thursday morning, but it became a lot milder during the day and has stayed that way since.

Obligatory picture of the boat with a tiny bit of snow!

On Thursday I walked to the local VNF office to see if I could find out what the official stance is on people like us moving.  An éclusiere answered the door and invited me in and we spent an entertaining but stressful 20 minutes before I was able to leave.  It was stressful for me because I had to concentrate so hard on the language she was using especially when she was on the phone to colleagues.  It was entertaining because she was really trying to help, and we were able to laugh at each other when we couldn’t understand each other’s French.

Amazingly, the log of boats in their area was handwritten and in pencil and we soon found our entry that had a comment alongside that we’d requested to stay at Froncles for four weeks.  After making sure she understood the rules for private boaters moving under lock down she had the painful task of explaining them to me.  In the end it wasn’t too difficult as they are quite simple really:

• Cruising is allowed
• Two days’ notice must be given to the local control centre
• Once moored then normal lockdown restrictions apply

This was pretty much what we expected (other than the notice period) so I said we would leave Froncles on Saturday morning and head for Vouécourt and she added the request to the log.

On Friday afternoon we drove to Vouécourt, parked the car near the mooring, and walked back to Froncles.  It looked a very pleasant village, but we refrained from looking around, saving those delights for once we’ve moved there. 

Walking from Vouécourt back to Froncles

I know people generally complain about the volume and complexities of French bureaucracy, but I’ve come up against a situation where the UK system outclassed the French one.  We have to declare our income in both the UK and France and therefore have to complete self-assessments for income tax.  Until we came over here the UK online process for self-assessment was always easy to understand and very simple to use.  Now we have to fill out an additional form regarding residency status and because of this form we have to complete the self-assessment on paper as opposed to online.  This seems so crazy as the printed form asks exactly the same questions as the online process!

While on bureaucracy our daughter Catherine, who lives in Barcelona, received her official post-Brexit residency status this week in the form of a TIE card (Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero).  Coincidentally we heard from the préfecture in Châlons-en-Champagne on Wednesday that we have to attend an interview there next week.  From the tone of the letter and the documentation we need to take, those experienced in residency matters believe our applications for residency have probably been accepted.  Hopefully, all we will have to do is prove who we are, have our fingerprints taken and then wait for our residency cards (cartes de sejour) to be issued.  Mind you we’re not overconfident and wouldn’t be surprised, with our record, if we have to supply more information followed by a second interview.

We’d agreed with VNF that we would leave Froncles at 11 on Saturday morning and, as luck would have it, the weather had turned grey, and the rain started just before we left and stopped about 10 minutes after mooring up an hour later!  It was good to be moving somewhere new though and at least it wasn’t raining hard enough to resort to full wet weather gear.

Not the blue skies of the last couple of weeks but still peaceful

We only went through one lock on the cruise and the lock cottage would have been ideal to live in: remote, lovely countryside, no neighbours and close to the river which must be great to swim in during the summer.

The remote lock at Buxières

You can see the effect of no boats having come through for four days with the weeds and other detritus that we had to go through at the lock head.  Considering how clear the canal is with very few weeds we were surprised how much had built up around the lock.  

Until about 100 years ago vines were growing on the tree-covered slopes.  At least two major things happened to cause the destruction of hundreds of vineyards in those days.  First there were several disastrous invasions of a disease called phylloxera during the 19th century that over time practically wiped out most vineyards in France.  Second, there was widespread removal of vineyards after regulation was introduced in the early 1900s that limited Champagne production to a specific geographical area. I know these hillsides are no longer deemed to be in Champagne even though they are in the Marne valley, so I guess that's the reason they were removed, and trees planted for timber and firewood.

Many bridges across this canal are still the original iron structures from the turn of the 19^th century and we find the style particularly attractive even though most of them need attention to the paintwork.

Bridge as we neared Vouécourt

About 200 people live in Vouécourt and there is very little modern housing, most of the new build is strung along the canal where we had to moor.

Approaching Vouécourt 

There were no services at the mooring hence it was called a Halte Pique-Nique but it was ideal for us for a few days.

By the time we’d settled in, the rain had stopped so we went for a quick scout around the village.  As we walked up to the canal bridge to get across to the middle of the village, we could see what was clearly a lavoir.  Standing on the canal bridge looking over the bridge across the river the lavoir, the church and the mairie were all in view.  Even considering the mairie had the traditional boys’ and girls’ classrooms attached it still looked out of proportion for a population of 300 or so when it was built in 1838.

Lavoir, church and mairie of Vouécourt

The lavoir was built in 1862 replacing one further and lower down in the village.  With so much iron ore extraction and related iron works along the Marne valley, stream fed lavoirs in the 1700s started becoming unusable due to the discolouration of the water.  The new lavoir was gravity fed by water extracted from the hills above the village and still is today.  It runs for nearly 2½ kilometres in a lead pipe and emerges into a drinking water trough outside the building before feeding the pool inside.

Drinking water trough on the outside

When the new lavoir was built it served a population of 350 hence its large washing basin:

The road through the village was raised and at various points was built over arches so that the road was still passable when the Marne was in flood:

A picture from the mairie’s website happens to capture one of the occasions when the Marne was rising:

The building with the drinking trough, in the picture above, was the original lavoir from the 1700s mentioned earlier but has since been paved over inside and is now used as a children’s play area.

Walking back across the canal & river bridges with the village war memorial on the right

The bridge over the Marne with the replacement lavoir peeping over the top

After a late lunch we drove to Chaumont to do the weekly food shop; well, Karen does the shopping while I walk Buddy so that only one of us has to mix with others.  As the closest shops were over 10 kilometres away, we had to fill out attestations explaining where we were coming from, where we were going and the reason for the journey.

We’ve been reading reports of French people spending their confinement away from their normal places of residence and people have been saying this is evidenced by the number of cars with non-local number plates.  I don’t quite follow this as, since 2009, registration plates don’t have to be changed when the owner moves from one département to another.  Before that time, it was easy to spot non-locals but the same cannot be so true today.

On Saturday we cruised three miles up one lock.