Thursday 13th September Flogny la Chapelle to Saint Florentin.

Trip 12kms Departure 10. Locks 7 of 538

We got up as the last of the heavy rain finally drifted away. It was a sodden deck I stepped out onto to unload the steel steed. The ride to the butchers and boulangerie was all uphill but rewarded by the purchase of two fresh crispy baguettes, 3 enormous faggots in red wine sauce and a crab and prawn pamplemousse starter for one. The crew does not do pamplemousse.

The crew had made a start on the walnuts, tough going. 7 de hulled about 70 to go. They looked great drying on the deck though. We had sausage baguettes and raised our cups of tea to the smedley wedding party who should be boarding the plane for mexico as we ate, before we departed at ten.

The first two locks were operated by the same eclusier as they were within 200 yds of our departure spot. Both needed filling so it was that 40 minutes after leaving, we could still see our mooring.

Another pretty reach

 

and we were quickly passing through locks now readied for our arrival. We stopped for the midday to one lunch hour at a scenic spot where the canal was bordered on both sides by rivers and happily there was a very well maintained quay with mooring rings.

We had just one lock left and we arrived waiting for it at 1 exactly. A deep lock it was to take several minutes to prepare, during which time the crew was fascinated by a large fish which was in a jumping frenzy in the approach to the lock.

We arrived at saint Florentin and moored close to a british flagged rather nice stevens. Owned by Barrett and Joyce, Barrett is the author of a cruising association publication on the winter lay up facilities on the whole waterway system. Although he has only just started cruising these waters he has collated information from the cruising association membership and is now adding to that with his own travel experiences. He was having problems getting a tv signal and was a tad exasperated. Nice one!

We readied the boat for the arrival of Nick and Pam who had now wintered there boat at bray on the nivernais and were visiting friends close to here so had arranged to pop over for a catch up and drinks.

They arrived at five sharp just as i was hopefully getting barretts t,.v problem sorted, i left him to finish off and we spent a lovely couple of hours damaging my gin stocks to the point of exhaustion. Pam had to drive so just had the three large ones. It was great to see them and the time just went too quickly. They had found us a house to. Uh on the nivernais for a remarkable price of 28000€ nick had left the sales details behind unfortunately but said that he would have bought it had he not been 80 next year and that we should consider it as a project. Having plenty of experience of French property dealings, I am sure he was right but a bit too far north for me! Still it would have been nice to have seen the details and proves that there are still opportunities to be had over here.

Despite the cheese and biscuits and picky bits we had enjoyed with them, we had the faggots and stuffed aubergine for dinner. The faggots were not really faggots but large balls of solid meat. Bloody lovely and the sauce was gorgeous.

We watched the rest of the appalling movie "the inbetweenies" having started it last night and then watched Trevor McDonald's Mississippi programme. Not my favourite travel presenter but this was very enjoyable.

 

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