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| Moored at Riaucourt |
During our walks around Bologne we’ve noticed signs to a place called Les Forges that’s a couple of kilometres away. Having come across a few old iron works along the Marne valley during our slow cruise up it, I took Buddy to Les Forges for his morning walk. The first thing I saw when I neared the place was that the public road came to an end with a security barrier across it and there were 30 odd cars in a car park just the other side. The land dipped away sharply to the river and I could see a factory complex in the valley that I later learnt belonged to an aeronautical components firm called LISL. Aircraft assembly products are made from pressed steel at the plant which would be unrecognisable to the people who worked at the original iron foundry on the site.
A railway line used to serve the works and on
the way back we followed it until it brought us back to the cut
not far from our mooring.
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| I wouldn’t fancy being on a train with that buckling |
As is often the case with old railway lines, they are wildlife corridors and there were plenty of butterflies out and about.
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| Male holly blue and male speckled wood |
We were having lunch outside the boat one day when a big Audi pulled up and a guy got out and introduced himself as living a little way back along the canal near the silos. He was ever so friendly and said he’d seen us when we came through the lock on Friday. He offered to give us water if we needed it and we assumed he was happy for us to take the boat down to his garden and let us use our hose on an outside tap. I told him it was kind of him to offer but we'd filled up when we left Viéville. The conversation preyed on my mind during the night, as I hadn’t really understood some of the things he'd said. I felt unhappy that he’d been so friendly, and I didn’t try harder to understand what he was saying. The next morning, I even walked back down the towpath to see if I could find his house and make amends. If he was in it would be obvious which house was his as it’s not often big Audis are seen out of towns but there were none to be seen.
During
Tuesday another car pulled up next to the boat, this time it was a gendarme and
the next thing we knew there was a knocking on the roof. I quickly put a mask on and went out to see
what he wanted. Following the usual
‘bonjours’ he asked me for my name. When
I told him, he smiled and handed me my driving licence which I didn’t even know
I’d lost. He told me it was found in
Roôcourt-la-Côte which is a couple of villages back. He remarked that we have a ‘joli péniche’,
said his goodbyes and off he went.
We
went for a walk at lunchtime with the intention of popping into Bologne to pick
up some bread on the way. As we joined
the road into the village, we could see a guy leaning on his gate watching the world
go by. As we neared, I realised it was the friendly
Audi guy so we crossed the road so I could make my amends. I apologised for not speaking more when he
came to see us and explained that my French is not very good to which he
replied that his English was non-existent and that he was sorry too. He extended his offer again and asked if
there was anything else we needed as he would be happy to help; I don’t think
he realised we had a car and could therefore get to the shops etc. if we needed
to. We had a conversation this time during
which he warned us that the shop would be closed as it was lunchtime.
We have now travelled 100 kilometres since joining this canal which means we
have nearly covered half of the 224-kilometre length since the
end of March. Sadly, the 100pk distance stone just up from our mooring is a pre-cast affair whereas all the others we have seen have been stone
originals.
I’ve
been getting the back deck area prepped for painting this week which entails removing the cover to the engine bay. This is a practice I'm used to as, when I service the
engine, I take it off and stand it against a tree or a fence on the towpath. During a service a few years back I had to pop inside the boat to get
something and completely forgot about the uncovered engine bay and, after
climbing up the rear steps to go out again, I promptly fell in.
Nothing was broken, just a few scrapes, bruises and some damaged pride. I’ve never made the same mistake again as not
only could it be very painful, I could end up snapping a lead or similar. That was until Tuesday when I’d been on the
roof for something and when I came to get back down, for some bizarre reason I
went backwards and wondered why my feet couldn’t find the deck. Of course, the next thing I knew, I was in
the engine bay again; no damage other than I was extremely embarrassed because
Karen heard me falling, so I couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened.
We
had rain off and on during Wednesday afternoon and by the evening it was
raining constantly. We couldn’t complain
as it’s been dry for a long time now, but we lit the stove in the evening,
something we hadn’t thought we do again until autumn. Looking at the forecast it seems the shorts
and sun cream will be going away for a few days too.
We
didn’t do an awful lot on Thursday other than having a two-hour bridge lesson
in the morning and playing competitive bridge for another couple of hours in
the evening. Evening sessions generally
run from 7.30 UK time which means we don’t finish until 10.30 our time and end
up going to bed quite late as we need an hour or two to calm our brains down 😉
Friday
was move day and with a touch of frost we lit the stove again to warm the boat
up a bit as we weren’t expecting much sun during the day. We got around to setting off just before
midday and were heading for Riaucourt which I noticed Karen had marked as ‘must
visit’ on our list of potential moorings.
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| Approaching Riaucourt |
The mooring was just below the lock and next to a dovecote which really was such a robust building that it was more like a folly, although by definition follies don’t have a practical use. Karen ran back to get the car with Buddy and left me to fill up with water.
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| Moored alongside the dovecote (le colombiére) |
Karen had checked the water point on one of her runs earlier in the week and said the water was on and that it was fine other than it was a push tap variety where the tap has to be held in continuously. I soon found out that not only did it have a push tap, it wasn’t the sort of tap that would easily take a hose. There was nothing for it but to use our 20-litre water containers and ferry them back and forth. I soon realised what Karen meant by ‘must visit’ as this job would keep me occupied and out of her way every day we’re here! I solved the push tap problem with a cable tie.
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| Cable tie solution |
I seem to remember that my parents used to have a rubber diaphragm to fix over the kitchen cold tap when using a hose in their garden. As these water fountains are quite common over here I’ve been looking for something similar to my parents' contraption but with no joy so far. I suppose it could have been worse, Karen could have been expecting me to use the well instead of the tap:
Later in the afternoon we popped out to get the weekly food shop out of the way as all shops would be closed on Saturday, labour day. As is the French custom on May 1st we were handed a sprig of Lily of the Valley by the checkout girl. Since the 15th century sprigs have been traditionally exchanged between families and loved ones. Like many celebrations, it’s been expanded to wish complete strangers, like us, good luck for the coming year. At least it’s not like most annual celebrations these days that seem to have been commercialised.
Even though Riaucourt is very small with just over 400 people living there, we’re looking forward to having a good look around over the weekend.
On
Friday we cruised 1½ miles through no locks.
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