May 14th Monday - Lamotte to Corbie

May 14th Monday - Lamotte to Corbie

Departure 9.30 Trip 10km

A gentle cruise in glorious weather to Corbie. Found a boat for jerry en route, what do you think mucker all about you i reckon.Tricky entrance to the Corbie lock as a strong current hits you beam on right at the entrance. Eclusier had pre warned me so ready for it & pas de problem.

Tied up & exchanged pleasantries with Paul & Caroline, Australians. He was born in Southampton but emigrated 35 years ago & had just retired to jet off on a year or 2 sojourn having given his business to his son. He had been here a couple of days and was an enthusiastic cyclist. Thus he provided me good info on some local WW1 stuff & places to visit as they had come to the Somme especially for Anzac day & were now working there way back to Reims & the Bourgoyne.

Biked to supermarket for vittals & found the bubbly Collette had really enjoyed from carrefour, €6 a bottle but very good. Got some Merlot at €2.50 to balance the books.

Had a lovely lunch on upper helm of bread, goats cheese poivre, Roquefort, ham & a red pepper with a lovely Greek sounding dip. Lost a bottle of leffe that had frozen in freezer & blew up on opening, bloody disaster. I recovered with a Not quite cold enough Stella.

The afternoon saw Collette debut the fabulous washing machine. Even I was excited to see it in action. Marvellous buy but Doucette looks like a laundry barge with clothes dryers up & every available hanging space utilised. Skipper not happy but accepts it is an unavoidable necessity.

Whilst the crew laundered the captain re acquaints himself with the newly acquired Stella, now cold from the freezer & tops his tan whilst reading up on Baron von Richtoven. Crucial preparation for tomorrows keenly anticipated tour.

Cooked a Kam Too style chicken & mushroom curry (the €14 poulet had been ok after all) using Hannah's Cornish curry paste. It was genuinely close to authentic Kam Too & I look forward to reproducing it for guests. I had a heated hour on the bag of nonsense - the iPad - trying to put photos onto Facebook. An individual one at a time, classic iPad crass performance affair before settling into another episode of Downton in which I am happy to say someone died fornicating with Lady Mary indicating her to be a right sort between the sheets which finally lifted the tedium on this pondering all costume no substance drama. One scene endured was a 10 minute hunt sequence with clever shots of the house, hounds & horses leading to a dramatic finale of Lady Mary & the Turk taking life into their hands by leaping across an 18 inch water ditch rather than going through the gate with the peloton. Chancers indeed, god it's dreary but maybe things are hotting up.

Weather - lovel sunny day very little cloud but chilly wind late evening