12th August 2007 (Sunday)
A fantastic nights sleep, I commandeered the front bedroom for myself, someone designed it for two people, hmm. Apparently slack didn’t sleep too well with the three dogs in a tiny twin room, she did have another small double room to choose from right next to mine?
Got up & cycled around to the harbour that we left last night, even that was a killer for a person like me who hasn’t done any exercise for years with the added problem of having about 101 gears to choose from. It’s only when you are doing a bit of exercise that you notice inclines & its very flat around here, it was only 8.45 am & I arrived sweaty with a list of questions, the main one can I have baby Blossom’s allergy injection that was locked in the car, the guy explained that it was a miracle that he was there as he was only on site because of an emergency, Bloss would have scratched herself to death. The compound in which my motor was stored was locked & he didn’t have the key so I had to scale the fence ripping my new extra large, extra white Fred Perry t shirt, as we are on a boat for the next six days without a washer it was a bit of a bummer, especially as its hard to buy clothes in Spain (where I live) where everyone is called Juan & is approx 5 foot & a peanut tall. I left the boat looking like a little boy on the way to his first day at school & arrived back at the boat looking like a captured member of the Colditz escape committee.
Cycled back & noticed people walking along with fresh bread, on a Sunday....get in there my son, I bought a portion of a massive rustic loaf with seeds & stuff in, it’s fab. Had a problem getting back to the boat though one handed with so many bloody gears, I’ve also lost any idea of road sense as well, it must be something you loose when you are continuously cocooned in a car.
When I arrived I discovered that the latest casualty was my Lucy, she had tumbled from the boat whilst disembarking, MA had managed to keep about half of her out of the water because she was still attached to her lead, would you trust this woman with kids? J
We set sail about 10, went through one lock that MA handled very well, I took over now & then, its sooooo pretty, a lot of fat bloated floating fish around though, is this because of the raw sewage? All in all quite a relaxing day except for a load of cocky Spaniards who overtook us dangerously & illegally on the inside to get to a mooring space before us, just typical of the race, everyone had been so polite & gracious up to that point except the tossa on the beach, anyway the macho gits over cooked it & made a right pigs ear of the manoeuvre & knocked the quay & after a few attempts even managed to end up facing the wrong way, we gave them the Maxwell coffee hand gesture & hand claps & decided to carry on, I hope they felt stupid, knowing my luck they’ll catch up with us tonight & I’ll get a kicking!
We arrived at Redon & parked in a restricted area, i.e. someone else parking space, Slack & I exchanged the usual heated pleasantries & eventually a flock of Gallic “Mr hardons” descended to help us (Mary Ann) the bastard harbour master even said that I had a beautiful wife! You can imagine? She’s still smiling 2 hrs later.
Tonight I’m doing my signature dish of chicken breasts stuffed with cheese & nuts, wrapped in a smoke cured ham with a special salad, if we can still stand after the vino we’ll take a stroll for a coffee & brandy in the old town which is supposed to be nice. Tomorrow is market day, just love French markets so we’ll check that out & then be on our way to La Gacilly. Another day, another lock.
16th August 2007
Don’t talk to be about boating. If it’s not a narrow bridge 4 inches wider than the boat it’s a lock, I haven’t been updating you because I simply haven’t had the time, this isn’t a holiday, this is a grind. One day we did about 9 miles I think. It was locks all the way, loads of em. I timed a few; it can take up to 35 – 40 mins to get through one. Let me talk you through it. If the lock is open in your favour its not as bad, but if its not you have to moor on a little rickety pontoon that can take a while especially if its blowy & the back end keeps swinging out. You have to secure the boat, front & back & then just as you have accomplished this the boat coming other way crawls out of the lock. The French lock keepers are not the most dynamic, something to do with being Latin. I could come up with a few modifications, these are medieval locks I think & do not have a bridge from one side of the other so you have to watch this guy/girl (mostly students I think) winding handles & twirling levers, then ambling nonchently (no spell checker for that) around to close another side of the gates, letting out the water, dead fish & turds, open the outward bound gate, walk around again & then open the other side. I mean I can’t think of another action on this planet that is so antiquated & time consuming, move on, please. This was on the canals, well I’m not doing canals again, I’m doing rivers, big & wide with big bridges & no locks.
On the plus side the canal can have fantastic countryside, mile after mile of farmland, on two occasions we had to pull into the bank & put some stakesout to moor for the night, in a cow field. It turns out that Sammy & Lucy just love cow shit, not your normal cow pat but fresh runny shit, they actually love it so much that they slurp it up with relish, it’s not as bad as eating dog shit or human shit but it’s still shit to me!
It’s very beautiful waking up in the country with the cows rubbing their necks on your mooring lines, its silent as the lazy lock keepers keep lazy hours you can’t really go anywhere until 9 am when the locks open, they close again from 12 – 2.00 & again at 7.00 pm. Once you are moored you won’t see a dicky bird. They’ve shot & eaten them all!
We had a day of appalling weather, it rained all night & all day, we stopped in a sad town for provisions, this was quite important as the next day was another bloody festival. We got the hounds together & followed the signs to the town, the god forsaken town, they were still trying to have some kind of party, the music (French) was blaring, there would have been rubbish blowing around in the wind except if was raining so much it was stuck to the floor. It was very depressing & we couldn’t find anything to buy, no one seemed to know where a supermarket was, what happened to the baker, butcher blah, blah thing.
I saw a sign for an out of town Hyper Market, I heroically order MA & the dogs back to the boat. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine”. What a walk, a killer but I got everything I needed though I was tempted to throw some of it over the hedge on the way back to the boat as it got heavier & heavier. I nearly froze to death what with the air con & chill counters. I literally had my pockets full of water & was steaming like a kettle; I was worried they may ask me to leave.
Lucy came a cropper, again. We were tied up in a lock, always a lock.... there was this lovely looking luminous green algae that completely carpeted the surface, it must have looked like a pristine lawn to be shitted on as senile Lucy tried to walk on water, I should have panicked & been upset but it was funny, Slacks bottom lip started to tremble, she was breaking down in front me, get a grip woman. Only Baby Blossom hasn’t fallen in yet, there is still time though.
Since then we have stayed in a little place called Suce, it was free with a proper mooring though we didn’t have power or water, sod all to do because of the holiday.
Today we left on the river, bliss! It’s so wide its like the sea with waves, crazy windsurfers & dinghy’s crisscrossing in front of us, stunning mansions & chateaux’s to the left & right, all way. All with nicely trimmed lawns all the way down to the waters edge with little boat houses & jetties. After an hour or so we arrived in Nantes, it’s a lovely City to arrive in by the river & it looks beautiful from where I am sitting now. We’ve just got back from a recce, trying to find a wi-fi spot as my mobile phone connection/modem isn’t working at the moment. We found out that the only people in this city at the moment are tourists. Aahaa, I hear you say, well it is the tourist season? So why have all the frogs closed up the restaurants’ & shops for August & gone somewhere else? It’s all shut! Tonight I had promised myself a Michelin starred restaurant & it looks like I’m going to get another below average pizza.
To cap it all I splashed out 10 euros for a key to the shower block, I thought it would be nice to have a spacious crap & shower as our shower is so small I have to kneel, it’s like having a piss in a wet suit.
Don’t be so silly! What was I expecting? The toilet had no toilet paper or seat & the showers blasted out water horizontally so that all my clothes that were hanging neatly on the door got a ten second soaking or should I say misting? Why does someone take the time to design a shower block where the water doesn’t actually remotely go in the direction of the shower tray, where you have to keep working the shower controls like a Pavlov experiment. It was impossible to wash off my Aramis shower gel as I needed someone else in the cubicle with me to work the controls, I was busier than Casey Jones. I have now finally come to the conclusion that unless you own Chelsea football club boating is a big chore, it’s like whipping yourself with birch twigs, not really? I’ve just made the mistake of letting MA read this for the first time, she promised not to give me a tongue lashing or even comment on my writing, she’s just had a go at me for been negative, I’m a “half empty guy” & she’s a” half full girl”. You’re right; she is a bit of a saint & don’t deserve her. I’ll let you know about the meal we have tonight later. You may not here from me again for a couple of weeks if my modem is bollocksed, I left my memory card on my car keys, I could buy a disc & I could find an internet cafe but where we are going next is remote. Bon nuit.
PS If I said everything was fluffy beyond belief you find it boring? Please let me have some feed back, por favour!