SATURDAY 16 SEPTEMBER
On Saturday we drove to Épernay to do the weekly food shop and Alistair came along to do his and Sabine’s while she stayed behind with Buddy to avoid him being in the heat of a car in a supermarket car park. The rest of the day was spent pottering doing the odd job and taking little walks, but mainly sitting on the pontoon chatting. We did see a clouded yellow butterfly which for some reason seems to be an unusual occurrence this year. Normally they are very plentiful in France, and they also migrate to England in varying numbers each year. I’ve included a photograph of the one we saw near the mooring as it clearly shows the unusual, coloured eyes they have:
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SUNDAY 17 SEPTEMBER
Soon after midday Karen and I drove to Asfeld which sits on the canal des Ardennes to see our friends, Paul and Sue, who were heading south on their new boat. Having had a broadbeam for many years they’d changed it for a river cruiser, and it would be the first time we’d seen it. We haven’t been on many such boats before, but we were very impressed with theirs. Asfeld is at the western end of the canal, and they’d left their car at Pont-à-Bar at the eastern end, and we’d thought that we’d be taking them to pick it up and then drive separately to Châlons-en-Champagne where they will be overwintering. They would then leave their car there and we would drive them back to their boat. Due to some miscommunication this wasn’t the plan as someone else was going to drive them around on another day, so we ended up having a pleasant afternoon on their boat catching up with all the news instead of driving for five hours.
Back at Cumières we spent the evening with our neighbours as usual and they were able to report the continuing lack of boat movements while we’d been away during the day. As we were sitting having our drinks and admiring the view of the village and vineyards above, a retired péniche, Styx, arrived and moored up near the trip boat. Other than those two boats the only other movement over the weekend had been a private boat passing downstream with Brits on board.
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| Karen watching Styx pass |
MONDAY 18 SEPTEMBER
Having finished washing and polishing one side of the boat when we arrived in Cumières over a week ago it was time to get the other side done. Obviously, this entailed turning the boat around and I told Alistair that’s what we planned to do in case they wondered if we were leaving without bidding our farewells. Sabine was inside their boat at the time but obviously overheard our conversation as she suddenly appeared and ‘explained’ to Alistair that he had jobs to do on the waterside of their boat so he should turn theirs around too.
As he seems to do every day or so, Regis from the village popped down to the mooring to have some French-English banter with us. Last week he’d promised to bring us some tomatoes from his allotment and we were half wondering if he’d forgotten, but this time he had a bag of them and true to his word he gave us a few. I know we all know what tomatoes look like but look at the difference in sizes between these.
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| Little and large |
Regis was keen to get a photograph of all of us together and had several attempts by setting the timer on his camera and running back to join us. We couldn’t cope watching his antics as he wanted to rest his camera on the railings leading down to the pontoon and it wouldn’t have taken much movement for the pontoon to wobble and the camera to end up in the water. Alistair convinced him to wait while he looped some string around the camera and the railings for safety. Regis never managed to get a picture he was happy with, but this was his best:
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| A sight rarely seen in France – two narrowboats moored together |
It was just as well the string had secured the camera because it did fall off once and fortunately was just dangling above the water.
A very quiet boat day as the trip boat doesn’t run on Mondays and no other boats passed us.
TUESDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
It seemed very early in the morning when we saw a Dutch barge called Vagabond pulling alongside us. It was nine o’clock, so it wasn’t that early for a boat to be on the move, it was just that it was early for a boat that seemed to be looking for somewhere to moor. In fact, it transpired that the Aussie and his Brit partner weren’t looking to moor, they were just after water. We told them to raft up against us and, as our hose has been attached to the water point since we arrived eleven days ago, I passed the end over to them to save them having to get their hose out.
The main task for the day was to start preparing the cratch boards ready for varnishing and by the middle of the afternoon I’d even got the first coat on. Alistair and Sabine left around four o’clock to make their way slowly to the junction with the canal latéral à la Marne and then up the canal. No doubt we will meet up again in a few weeks as once we’ve been down the Marne for a while we’ll be turning around and making our way there too.
I received an email from Regis
during the day with a copy of an old postcard showing
the bateau lavoir that we
recently learned used to be moored at Cumières and it was a different postcard to the one I’d found a few days previously. He also sent me this copy of a photograph of the river bank in the village which included the back end of the lavoir:
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| Old photo of the bateau lavoir at Cumières |
The vendanges in Cumières are nearly over and the majority of the grape pickers have moved on elsewhere. We only heard a couple of champagne house celebrations during the day indicating the end of their vendange and, of the dozens of individual vineyards we can see on the surrounding hills, we could only make out pickers in a couple of them.
Other than Vagabond who pulled in water in the morning the only other boat on the move was the trip boat. We think we’ll probably move off to somewhere new tomorrow as we no longer need electricity as I’ve done all the polishing I need to do at present.
WEDNESDAY 20 SEPTEMBER
The hour’s difference between the UK and France really makes an impact at this time of year now sunrise is around normal getting up time for us. In other words, those who get up around seven in the UK are now missing the sunrise whereas in France we’re just catching it.
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| Sunrise at Cumières (07.00 French time) |
Soon after sunrise, Karen drove the car to Reuil, our next planned mooring spot, and ran back to the boat. Shortly after she returned, we cast off and were heading for the first lock on the river Marne. All the locks on the Marne are larger than the 38.50m freycinet locks, the smallest standard but, unlike nearly all French rivers and canals, they don’t adhere to any standard. Those at the Seine end of the river south of Paris are 125.00m long but the majority all the way upstream to where we’re currently cruising are 45.00m long. Several of the locks at our end have sloping sides like some of those we encountered on the river Yonne. Unlike those on the Yonne, the ones on the Marne have floating pontoons which make ascent or descent simple because we just tie to the pontoon. On the Yonne, we have to hover in the centre which is fine when going down as that is our normal method of descent unless sharing a lock with commercials. Ascending is problematic because of the buffeting from the incoming water means we have to use lines to secure the boat.
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| Sloping sided lock at Cumières |
The locks at this end of the Marne are operated by using a télécommande which is not obtained until the first lock, so we had to radio ahead to get the lock set for us. The éclusier reacted immediately and the lights at the lock indicated he was getting it set. As we arrived, he came down to give us a télécommande and find out our rough cruising plans. After one more lock we were soon at Reuil and mooring on the 20m pontoon provided in the village:
There was a large grape pickers camp nearby and some of them came down to see us as we arrived. They explained that their vendanges had finished the previous day and they were all in the process of moving on. Even as we were chatting the camp was emptying and a procession of vans and caravans could be seen leaving the village. The vineyards in Reuil are mainly south facing but we could see that those on the opposite slope of the Marne were still being picked. The bridge over the river was busy with tractors bringing the grapes in from those slopes with a later picking date.
Other than at least a dozen champagne houses there was no commerce in Reuil so the village will be very quiet once the grape pickers have moved on.
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| Reuil church |
There was a small lavoir in the village and I’ve included a picture as it is unusual in that it has raised wash stones allowing the ladies to do their laundry without bending their backs too much. It also had drying rails hanging over the basin:
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| Reuil lavoir |
Later on, a dozen or so Czech grape pickers came down to the pontoon for a swim and cool down. They told us they had one more day to go and then some would go home and some move on elsewhere. They had four dogs with them who were very well behaved, and played nicely with Buddy. We asked how their dogs cope in the heat, and they explained that there is plenty of shade between the lines of vines for them to lay down in (obvious if we’d thought about it).
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| Chilling Czechs |
On Wednesday we cruised 10km down two locks and didn't see any boats.
THURSDAY 21 SEPTEMBER
The mooring at Reuil was next to a road bridge and we’d forgotten how tractors and lorries could be heard from five or six in the morning. Having been used to such peaceful moorings for the last few weeks, we were probably even more aware of the traffic noise, so we decided to move on to another mooring to avoid being woken up early again. Rain was forecast from mid-morning for most of the rest of the day, so we got going as early as possible. Before breakfast we drove to Port-à-Binson and then walked back to Reuil and after a quick bite to eat got on the move. Part of the cruise felt quite different because some of the hillsides were covered with woodland rather than the champagne vineyards we’ve been seeing of late:
As can be seen in the picture above, the skies were darkening but the rain held off until a few minutes before we pulled up to the mooring at Port-à-Binson. Fortunately, we didn’t get too wet but as we came indoors it started raining quite heavily and, as per the forecast, it then rained at varying degrees of intensity until early evening.
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| Wet mooring at Port-à-Binson |
On Thursday we cruised three kms through no locks and the only boat we saw was a workboat travelling extremely fast soon after we’d moored up.
FRIDAY 22 SEPTEMBER
We did the weekly food shop a day early this week and, like the previous week, drove to Épernay but as we were moored somewhere new we took a route that we’d not driven before. We went through some quaint champagne villages and found four lavoirs as we went though them. They were all relatively well restored and looked after as well as being in water.
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| One of the two lavoirs in Boursault |
The vendanges seem to have all but finished now with the grape pickers either moving on for work elsewhere or returning home wherever that may be. Of the 120,000 workers that come in for the vendanges, 100,000 are put up by the champagne houses either in their outbuildings or in small fields set aside for their tents and caravans. The remainder are housed in special areas in municipal campsites. We still see the odd tent or caravan but most areas are now clear with just the odd giveaway portaloo waiting to be picked up.
In the afternoon we took the car to the lock at Vandières and walked back to Port-à-Binson. Well, we didn’t walk back straight away as Karen wanted to get some walnuts from a particularly good tree by the lock that she’d investigated on her morning run. It certainly was a good tree because not only were the walnuts large, a lot had dropped overnight and not been cleaned up by the locals. We (mainly Karen) collected nearly a bag-for-life full and put them back in the car as they would have been too cumbersome to carry all the way back to the boat. We had some wonderful views of the vineyards and villages on the hills as we walked back along the river to Port-à-Binson.
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| Evening view of Port-à-Binson road bridge from our mooring. |
Once again there were no boats on the move so for the rest of the year I'm only going to record when we see one.
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