Saturday 25th August Carla's birthday, Ecluse 34 to Gissey-sur-Ouche

Trip 2kms Departure 10 Locks 2 of 402

I woke early and witnessed a stunning dawn.

Which just got better as i sat on the poop with the first cup of tea of the day. Last of the yorkshire t-bags so hope trish remembers to bring us some.

After breakfast and a happy birthday call to Carla, we set off the short hop to Gissey where we would greet Dave and Trish tonight. Once there we set about organising the boat for the guests but suddenly relished we needed vittals. I took the steel steed to investigate. Found a lovely old lady in this delightful village who explained that a man sold fresh vegetables from his garden and gave me directions, the bread van came between 7 and 7.30 tomorrow but would not be hooting as all bread was Pre ordered so it would mean just sitting and waiting for him. The grim news was that the nearest meat was back at villeurs, 15kms up the canal. I got back and briefed the crew. We went to check out the allotment and sure enough a sign with a phone number and opening hours of 5 pm to 7pm tonight was outside the wooden door of basically an acre of walled cultivated allotment. I called the number and spoke to Francoise a south African who had been a hotel barge captain until retirement 2 years ago when his wife had died. He had settled here and now produced vegetables for several local villages. He would see me at 7pm.

We set off on the trek to villeurs. An 18mile round trip for shopping was a record breaker for us but it was a lovely canal side ride. Got there in an hour. Luckily the supermarket was open. We had a right result with the meat. We chatted to the butcher and chose a fab joint of pork for tonight, but couldn't decide on tomorrows. He suggested a joint of beef. How much I enquired, 19€ he said, we looked at each other and were weighing it up when he suddenly put his finger to his mouth, checked on his boss behind him, tapped the till and suddenly the price changed to 11€. Marvellous. We added 8 monster merguez and with a massive thank you we scarpered.

Next door in the boulangerie, I again walked in and was confronted with an even more impressive loaf than the 5.50€ one. It was called a Ferdinand. This time I had the sense to ask how much.

This time it was both the crew and myself on the floor. 16€ !

I got another 5.50€ version.

We stopped off at the belle vue bar which was approximately half way back for sustenance. Beers and orangina. Round trip back to Doucette had taken 4 hours and our guests were due to arrive pretty soon so we hurriedly continued with preparations. At 5.30 though, I was delighted to spy Dave and Trish strolling over the canal bridge towards us. They had made good time. Emotional hugs and kisses and I talked like a machine gun with an endless cash of ammunition over drinks and nibbles.

It was soon time to stroll over to see Francoise. It was a lovely experience. He had bought my requested haricot but then gave us a choice of new potatoe variety to choose from. Once selected he took a fork and turned over the patch and we had the freshest potatoes you could wish for. Dave was given a knife to go and cut his choice of lettuce. We got 3 courgettes each a foot long, one was free as he had loads, then he asked us if we had heard of gem squash. No was a unanimous reply.

Came to south Africa from the uk, but rare now to find it in blighty apparently. He had bought them to France and amongst his customers they were a very popular option. Size of a grapefruit, he told us to cut them in half scrape out the pips and roast for 20mins with a bit of seasoning. We took 2.

Back at Doucette, the pork was doing nicely on the cob.

We enjoyed some salmon and crab mousse with lettuce and the bread for starters.

The pork was superb with the haricot vert.

Lots of bubbly Cremant rose for the girls and Dave was thrilled by the standard merlot. We talked for England and occasionally the crew and guests got an odd word in before a midnight retirement. Dave and Trish had done well considering the long journey they had endured.

it was good to have them aboard.

 

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