Vandières (reminded of a hermit)

SATURDAY 14 OCTOBER

The main objective on Saturday was to listen to the much-heralded India-Pakistan cricket match and watch the Wales and Ireland rugby games.  First though, we wanted to have a good look around the parts of Château-Thierry that we hadn’t seen on our previous visits.  We’d walked around the ramparts of the medieval town last time we came but during our walk on Saturday we saw a 13^thcentury gate that we’d previously only seen from the other side where it wasn't as impressive.

Porte Saint-Pierre's better side

The steep and narrow streets on the eastern side of town were also new to us:

It was off a couple of these streets that we found two of the three lavoirs that we discovered during our walk.  All of them were in quite a sorry state of repair but at least they still had water collecting in the basins. 

Red and white ‘Eau non potable’ signs are often seen by fountains and water troughs and also in lavoirs in France.  The signs we saw at the lavoirs in Château-Thierry were quite different, being made of tin or similar metal, and the first we’ve seen that had the words, ‘Eau non buvable’ instead of, 'Eau non potable' such as this one on a water trough:

The water trough dated 1855 as was the lavoir it sat outside

Back on board for the sport we were a little disappointed with the cricket as India won rather easily so none of the anticipated tenseness was felt.  Argentina held together well and deserved to beat Wales and as for the other match, what a game – the best so far.  I still find it sounds weird that Argentines are nowadays referred to as Argentinians, but I suppose I’ll get used to it.  I think it’s because some people hear the modern noun and mistakenly call the country Argentinia, which irritates me.  

SUNDAY 15 OCTOBER

It was yet another sunny day but was definitely colder which was even more noticeable because we left early for a morning cruise.  Well, not as early as we originally thought as I’d forgotten that we were turning around and heading upstream.  Going upstream is quite different for a narrowboat in French locks and I’d not accounted for the time it takes to do the extra preparation to get the boat ready; however, the picture below shows we managed to leave before the sun was fully up.

Leaving Château-Thierry early on Sunday morning

By the time we’d left the outskirts of the town the sun was fully out and, as long as we kept out of the shadows of the taller trees, it felt surprisingly warm as we cruised along.

About to pass Jaulgonne

After going up the lock at Mont-St-Père, where we’d stayed for a few days the previous week, we stopped for a while to have brunch.  The péniche J-P-P-H was still moored on the dolphins below the lock, and we learnt that they were waiting for the call to take on dredged material in the next pound during the coming week.

Approaching the lock at Mont-St-Père

About halfway to the next lock, we passed the dredger moored up for the weekend and Tonga was moored at the bottom of the lock waiting for their call too.  Once we’d ascended we tied up for the rest of the day after our longest cruise for many months.

Moored at Courcelles

Having listened to the disaster of the England-Afghanistan cricket match we had to hope we fared better in the rugby which we did by the skin of our teeth.  We'd thought the Kiwi-Irish game was one of the best but the France-Springbok game in the evening topped all the matches we've ever seen.  It's going to be difficult watching England next weekend.

On Sunday we cruised 12km up two locks. 

MONDAY 16 OCTOBER

As expected, it was cold overnight on Sunday, so we lit the stove in the morning to take the chill off.  This was our first lighting of the winter, and no doubt it will soon start becoming a regular occurrence.  We were greeted with thick fog on the river but once it had lifted, the sun came through and left us with a lovely dry but chilly day.  As well as getting on with some of the tasks on the job list which entailed working both inside and outside the boat we took a couple of walks around Courcelles and along the river.  Courcelles is one of those villages that provides a handy bench for resting on and theirs happens to be inside the lavoir!

Resting (out of picture) after the climb up from the river

Even though the weather had turned cooler there were still the expected late autumnal butterflies on the wing: the usual different species of whites plus the hibernators such as peacocks and small tortoiseshells.  One of the most common butterflies at this time of year is the red admiral which can often be found in some numbers on either rotting windfalls or on ivy flower heads. As the climate has generally been getting warmer, an increasing number of red admirals manage to overwinter each year thus avoiding the long flight to northern Africa, their natural winter home. 

TUESDAY 17 OCTOBER

With the weather warming up again it meant that I had no excuse but to get on with more of the preparation for repainting the roof next year.  Having identified and sanded down all the potential rust spots arising from general wear and tear, such as from grit stuck in soles of shoes, it was time to get the anti-rust treatment done.  I had to do that as soon as the roof had warmed up because after that there was only a three hour window to apply the metal oxide layer.  The weather forecast was correct as it stayed dry and sunny all day and we even got a walk into a village called Sauvigny.  For those of you who are enjoying the world cup cricket you’ll probably have been as glued as we were to the commentary of the Dutch-South African match.

WEDNESDAY 18 OCTOBER

The weather continued to be warmer, and we decided to cruise up to Dormans during the day.  As it was a run day, Karen moved the car first, taking Buddy with her.  While they were gone, I got the saw out and cut up the logs we’ve been collecting lately so that we won’t be short when we finally need the stove on most, if not all, of the time.  We finally set off around mid-morning and were soon arriving at Dormans.   

Road bridge in Dormans

I took Buddy for a walk soon after lunch during which it unexpectedly started raining.  The rain didn’t ease off during the rest of the afternoon, so we stayed indoors for the remainder of the day.

Moored at Dormans

On Wednesday we cruised four km through no locks.

THURSDAY 19 OCTOBER

When we bought our first narrowboat in 2009, we only used it at weekends and kept in in a small marina on an island in the middle of Newbury in Berkshire.  After a few months we got fed up with doing the same thing every weekend as the cruising range over a couple of days is obviously limited.  We then left the marina and became what are called continuous cruisers which had all sorts of advantages including relinquishing the expensive marina fees.  This class of boater has a specially recognised licence and has to keep moving around the waterways without staying anywhere for more than a fortnight at a time.  We really enjoyed this new way of life, leaving work on a Friday, heading for wherever we last left the boat, cruise to somewhere new and then returning home on Sunday evening.  It did have its drawbacks of course, as living in Kent at the time meant many hours often spent on the M25 at the busiest times but it was always worth it whenever we arrived at the boat and could immediately relax.

We lived like this for a couple of years and when I retired, Karen started working from home and we decided that to avoid all the travelling, we should just move onto the boat and Karen would WFB rather than WFH.  We let the house out and moved aboard which meant we were no longer constrained by the car journeys at each end of the weekend and could travel further afield.  We loved the exploring so much that in 2014 Karen took a year’s sabbatical from work which freed us up even more as we didn’t have to worry about whether we had an internet signal for work every time we moved the boat.  We still had a constraint though; our boat was 70’ long and we were unable to visit some of the northern waters such as the Leeds & Liverpool and Huddersfield Broad canals.  By this time we knew exactly how we would design a boat and did just that based on a 57’ hull, the length that would allow us to travel without restriction.  We took delivery of that boat during 2016 and that is how we got to where we are today.

Since moving to France, we’ve stopped living full time on the boat so we can spend time with our children and grandchildren.  It was easier when we were in the UK as they were generally just a car journey away but now it has to be more of a planned operation, so we go back for a couple of months in the summer and again in the winter.  On top of this we were very fortunate a year ago when a house came on the market in Flecknoe in Warwickshire.  Flecknoe is the village we’ve always wanted to retire to ever since we fist came across it in our early boating days and we moved in at the beginning of March this year.  It does now mean we have another pull to spend time away from the boat but one we’ve gladly accepted.  I say that as I’ve long felt that buying our forever home, as they are called these days, would signal the end of my active life but, pleasingly, this hasn’t been the case.

The preceding three paragraphs arose from wanting to tell you about an event that happened when I started the engine on Thursday morning.  To explain what happened entailed giving some preamble which went on a bit longer than anticipated for which I apologise.  Anyway, as with all boaters our ignition keys are attached to lumps of cork or wood, so they float if dropped in the water.  When we were based in Newbury, we befriended a guy who can best be described as a highly educated tramp.  He was very private, living as a recluse in a tent on a roundabout that was covered in shrubbery.  Each day he would cycle somewhere along the canal and find a bench where he would complete crossword puzzles.  Those were the days when physical newspapers were still commonplace, and he would visit bins to retrieve discarded broadsheets with crosswords that hadn’t been attempted.  He told us he lived in a tent as he didn’t get on with the drink and drug habits of some of the down and outs to be found in the town hostels.

It transpired that in his past he’d been a rope fender maker and he ended up making six rope side fenders for our boat that we then transferred to the current boat and they’re still going strong.  He also put an interesting string covering around our key cork and this is the point of this long story.  We’d noticed the length of cord attaching the cork to the keyring itself had begun to fray and when I started the engine on the Thursday morning it finally snapped leaving the expertly covered cork globe intact but no longer of any use.

The spare keyring and what's left of the old one

Not only was I reminded of the fender maker whose name eludes me but memories were brought back of a solution one of the children came up with after the first time I lost my glasses in the cut:

A fiendish solution for non-floating spectacles

There was the odd spell of drizzle during the morning, but by midday the clouds were lifting, so we set out for our next stop, above the lock at Vandières.

Leaving Dormans under grey skies

About halfway into the cruise one of our engine warning lights came on and lifting the engine cover I found what I suspected, one of the fan belts had snapped. Fortunately, it was the one that charges the domestic batteries which meant we were able to continue our cruise, leaving the job of replacing it until we moored up at Vandières.  The skies had practically cleared by this point leaving a wonderfully warm day which is always helpful if having to work outside.

Approaching the lock cut at Vandières

We took on water in the lock, or rather I did while Karen disappeared.  She hadn’t forgotten that the walnut trees at the lock bore the largest nuts of the year and better than that, with no one living nearby, they remained uncollected.  Despite agreeing with me that she didn’t need to gather any more this season she just couldn’t help herself and came back with a massive haul.

Autumnal colours on some ornamental trees as we emerged from the lock

As soon as we moored up Buddy did his usual thing and lay down next to the boat.

But, what’s Buddy guarding?  Yes, Karen’s walnuts that she didn’t need:

Latest haul drying on the quayside

Once we were settled in, there was nothing for it but to get on with putting on a new alternator belt.  For some reason the domestic belt, which is wide and ribbed, is a lot harder to replace than the engine starter belt which is classic V-shaped.  There was a lot of swearing on my part and I was glad it hadn’t happened during the very hot weather.  At one point Karen made her way over the open engine bay and called out, ‘it’s a hard job being a man’, which I didn’t find very helpful.  Anyway, I got the job done and was at least able to listen to the cricket whilst doing it.

The shredded belt

On Thursday we cruised eight km up one lock.

FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER

We awoke to rain but it cleared by about 10am so we went for a walk to Port-à-Binson.   

A grey morning at Vandières

When we returned to the boat, Karen ran back to Dormans to collect the car while I took the boat on the short, lockless hop to Port-à-Binson.

Approaching an island near Port-à-Binson

I’d just finished mooring up and settling in as Karen arrived and parked the car in the camping park by the mooring.  During the afternoon, the clouds pretty much cleared leaving us with some nice warming sun for the rest of the daylight hours.

On Friday we cruised three km through no locks.