Langres (tarred with the Brexit brush)

Is this what we’ve been looking for?

Rain was expected during the afternoon on Monday so after breakfast Buddy and I walked back to Rolampont to pick up the car.  When we'd come along this particular stretch in the boat, we’d noticed there were no kilometre stones along the towpath which is quite unusual for this canal as most have still been in situ.  So, walking back I kept a keen eye open for the missing stones and also the asset marks that help identify them.  Asset marks are white lines painted on the towpath that identify VNF assets that have to be maintained such as benches, bollards and sluices.  I soon came across a mark that wasn’t identifying anything obvious:

I beat back the growth on the bank and sure enough found a distance stone lurking there:

Flailed to death

Hidden stones must make a mess of the verge side mowers if the driver doesn’t know they’re there.

Later I drove into Langres to do the weekly food shop.  As it was a non-serious public holiday some shops were open, and some were closed.  The first two supermarkets I tried were closed but the third was open and really quite empty, so I wondered if it was about to close, and I’d missed a notice on the door or a loudspeaker announcement.  As it was, I needn’t have worried as it stayed open but was just strangely quiet.

By late afternoon we thought we’d missed out on the forecast rain but then at six o’clock the skies darkened, and we had thunder and lightning for about half an hour.  It really seemed an odd time of year for a thunderstorm and as the temperature had dropped too, I lit the stove.  By the time the wood was giving out heat the rain had stopped and the sun was back out!

My morning walk on Tuesday took in Jorquenay, the next village up the canal and the last place before we reach Langres.  It felt decidedly chilly and consequently there were no butterflies to be seen.   A relatively modern lift bridge takes a road over the canal as it runs through Jorquenay.  When the canal was built a swing bridge had been installed rather than a lifting one judging by the name of the area next to it:

Turning bridge square

Place du Pont Tournant on the far side of the lift bridge

In the canal’s heyday there would have been a man employed to operate the swing bridge and he lived with his family in the house on the left in the picture above, overlooking the canal.  The building in front of the bridge keeper’s house was yet another converted lavoir, this one is now a salle de fêtes whereas the last one, in Hûmes, had been converted to a doctor’s surgery.  Looking at old photographs later I found one from 1906 that showed the lavoir prior to its conversion.  The bridge keeper’s house even had an enamel information plate in the same style as those on the lock houses:

The original swing bridge was removed in March 2014 and the new bridge wasn’t installed and opened to road traffic until January 2016, although the canal was open during most of that period.  Incredibly, the project cost just over €1,4m of which VNF (the French canal authority) paid a little under 10% and the balance was funded by the departmental council of Haute-Marne.

The village war memorial

The other end of Jorquenay with its church on the hill

The three of us went for a walk in the afternoon and fortunately it had become warmer which meant butterflies were venturing out again.  Karen mentioned that she thought she’d seen a walnut tree by a lock on her run the previous day, so we went to have a better look.  It’s quite a tradition for walnut trees to be planted by lock cottages so it wouldn’t have been odd to find one.  What was strange though, was that we didn’t realise that they are the last of the common trees to come into leaf in this part of the world, even later than the ash and the oak. 

Bare walnut tree by the lock cottage

It seemed almost unbelievable that within a month it would be covered in leaves and fruit ready for pickling.  Hopefully we won’t miss out on the young nut harvest as we did last year, although we made up for the mature nut harvest in the autumn as we’ve still got a couple of bags of unopened nuts.

There's a farm on the far side of the lock to the right and every morning and evening cows from a field on the left make their unaided way across the lock to the farm when they're ready to be milked:

  

Our last morning at Hûmes

We left for Langres at the pre-arranged time of three o’clock on Wednesday.  I say pre-arranged as VNF have called by at the boat on each of the last three days checking which day and at what time we would be leaving Hûmes.  They needed to know as they had to have an éclusier on hand to lift the bridge at Jorquenay.  Each time our answer was the same, ‘mercredi à quinze heures’.  After lunch Karen took the car to Langres to leave it at the port then ran back and we left dead on time.  It had been threatening rain all day and as we set off it started and within a few minutes it was pelting down.  According to the press we will be in for a prolonged spell of good weather from Thursday, so fingers crossed.

Sure enough, soon after we set off, an éclusiere came past in her van heading for the bridge.  She timed it perfectly as it reached its vertical position and the lights turned green when we were about 20 metres away. 

The bridge at Jorquenay on a murky afternoon

It was just as well she was there as the first lock was just past the bridge and it refused to recognise our télécommande.  She saw that we weren’t getting anywhere so drove up to the lock and set it going for us.  She kindly drove up to and waited for us at the following lock to make sure it worked ok which it did.  It was only another couple of hundred metres or so after going up that lock before we were mooring up at the port in Langres.  It had room for a dozen or more boats but there were only two there and they looked like they hadn’t moved for months; they were at one end, so we tied up at the other. 

Our new mooring at Langres

True to form the rain eased up as we arrived, and I set about making the boat ready for a stay of a week or two.  A fisherman further up the quay came down and asked if we were English because of our flag.  When I concurred, he spoke in Dutch sounding English and said he could also have guessed because we’d brought the rain with us.  Even though most nations make fun of Brits and their obsession with the weather it’s not something French people have joked about directly to us so that also confirmed he wasn’t French.  It's not that the French don't make fun of us but they usually laugh at the strange eating habits of Brits; the odd times of day we have our meals, the fact that meals are rushed, the constant snacking etc. 

I noticed a Belgian car parked next to where Karen had left our car, so I asked the fisherman if he was Belgian and if he was on holiday.  He told me that he was and that he’d been in France since the beginning of May on a fishing holiday, moving around the canals while staying at different campsites.  When I asked how he did it as Belgians are not allowed to travel, he said that it’s only advice and he keeps himself to himself.  I must admit that he must be really dedicated as the on-off rain for the last two weeks must make it pretty miserable living in a tent, especially if during the day he’s been fishing in the rain too.

Langres is one of those ports where electricity and water is free but with a difference and that’s because the electricity is only available for three hours a day, one hour at 7.00am, one at noon and one at 7.00pm.  We didn’t really need electricity, especially as the weather is going to improve again, but thought I’d hook up anyway.  The allotted time of 7.00pm arrived and the power didn’t come on.  After waiting 15 minutes it still wasn’t on, so I hooked up to the next borne along with the same result so gave up trying.

Wednesday sundown at Langres - looking the other way

On Wednesday we cruised three miles up two locks.

I woke up on Thursday morning with the electricity situation bugging me.  There were four more bornes to try before the ones that the two boats at the end were hooked up to.  I got our extra-long, 60-metre extension lead out and thought I’d keep trying.  The second borne I tried was working so I moved the boat down to the working borne and settled us in again.  When 8.00am came, the power didn’t go off and as it was still on at 10.30am so we suspected it would be on constantly rather than the three set hours a day.

The walled town of Langres is about three kilometres from the port and we can just see it from the boat, above the trees:

We’re looking forward to spending time exploring the old town and its famous 3,5-kilometre-long walls that are still intact.  Before we could do that, we had Thursday to get through.  We had our weekly bridge session in the morning and in the afternoon, I drove to Châlons-en-Champagne to pick up my carte de séjour (French residency card) which had finally arrived.  I went on the autoroute for the whole journey, so it only took two hours each way.

The car journey of a little over 200 kilometres back to Châlons-en-Champagne rather made a mockery of our journey by boat since we left there nearly three months ago.  Anyway, the trip was successful, and we are now both proud owners of French residency cards even though they are stamped with “ARTICLE 50 TUE” marking us as obtaining them under the voluntary and unilateral withdrawal of Great Britain from the EU 😖

While I was back in Châlons I checked on who was left in the port and found that only Guy & Ardon on Vindi hadn’t set off yet.  I stayed and chatted with them a while and heard all about their cruising plans for this year and then left for the journey back to Langres which was as uneventful as the journey up had been.  Although I had the embarrassment suffered by drivers of right-hand drive vehicles when going through European tolls on their own: the ungainly clambering/leaning across the passenger seat and hanging out of the window to reach toll tickets and make payments.  At least the machines now dispense tickets automatically and take contactless payment so there’s no need to touch anything. 

With the sun out all day on Thursday and set fair for the next couple of weeks it bodes well for the weekend and our exploration of Langres.  Oh, and the elctricity is still on!

Looks promising at 7.00am on Friday