Happy New Year

Yup, the Christmas Party was really good - everybody had a great time. Lots of laughter and fun - and to top it all, a surprise visit from Santa and the Snowman (aka Paul and Maralyn). Together with their Piratical helpers (Jo and Janna) they really made the party swing.

The socialising continued on Christmas Day with drinks and nibbles at Ann and Lawrence's in the morning (Ann had even made a selection of gluten free pastry and polenta dishes) . They laid on a brilliant spread that got everybody into the Christmas spirit. We later joined Jo and Janna (and Tache) for an excellent Christmas dinner. Good company and good food - a great way to spend our first Christmas in France.

The partying continued on Boxing Day - we thought it would be a good idea to have an open house for a few hours on board Slo-Motion. We had twelve people on board for the Queen's Jubilee Party in Upton - how many could we fit in this time? (it turned out to be 18!)

Pete did a brilliant job of cooking hot 'finger' food and the black pudding and mini burgers were eaten as fast as they came out of the frying pan. 

It was really good fun and good for us to be able to say thank you to all the people here who have been so friendly, welcoming and helpful since we arrived. 

Thank you everyone!

The weather has been kind - very welcome after all the rain, and we have managed a couple of walks along the river to enjoy the winter sunshine.  

So a great end to 2012 and wishing our family and all our friends, old and new, 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

OK! - It's winter, it's been raining stair-rods, the days are short, the skies are grey and it's cold. BUT - although we're not so active, there is plenty going on here in St Jean de Losne.

Slo-Motion winter mooring

We made an unscheduled flying visit to the UK at the end of November, mainly to have our MOTs with Doctors, Dentist etc. We had also decided that without a car, we were wasting our winter by not being able to visit some of the beautiful towns and countryside which are all around us. Our plans to use public transport didn't work out - there are few buses and trains, and they run very early and very late, serving the working and student population, not much good to a couple of late risers.

We didn't manage to see everyone we would have liked to, but thanks to Mal and John and Nick and Val for putting up with us and it was great to celebrate Rob's birthday with Ze, Jamie, Paddy and Hannah and of course, Moose. We will hope to catch up with our other friends and family during next year.

Moose

Now we have wheels we can visit local markets and buy the very best of local produce, not only good but not expensive. Our experience so far is that wherever we buy our food, the quality is consistently higher than in the UK.

We can also get to the big retail parks for DIY supplies, electrical and household goods and yesterday we enjoyed a meatball lunch at Ikea - we know how to live it up.

The towns nearby are decorated with Christmas lights and there are varied activities during the lead up to Christmas, but, on the whole, we find it not so rampantly commercial as the UK. A bit more wholesome?

We saw drummers in Dole, they were really enjoying themselves on a cold and frosty Saturday last week. Glen is proposing drumming courses as a form of anger management!

Twelve Drummers Drumming

The week before last was St. Nicholas day. This is a big occasion in St Jean de Losne and we, (the boating community), are invited to form a guard of honour for St. Nicholas as he crosses the river by boat and disembarks at the Town Quay.

Black Peter et al

Provided with white tabards, paper hats and flaming torches, we accompanied the horse and cart carrying Saint Nicholas, the Town Band and Black Peter, through the streets to the river, escorted him on board his boat, then legged it across the bridge to meet him on the other side. Dignified it wasn't! 

Just got there in time....

But, we did have fun and then processed around the town as darkness fell and the wind got up, blowing sparks and molten wax from our torches - what do you mean "health and Safety"? 

The children all loved it - and there was a great party for them afterwards in the equivalent of the community centre.

Bramble - Murray & Kate's cabin dog - best dressed in the parade

Unfortunately we also brought back with us some of the UK bugs - and have been variously laid up coughing and spluttering but were fortunately recovered enough to go along to the Festive Boaters' Information morning last Wednesday at the Museum. A really good turn out, lovely food and mulled cider - think everybody is now really in the mood for celebrating - so it bodes well for tonight when we're having our Christmas Party at Nathalie's Bar on the quayside - watch this space…..

Meet Tache - Janna & Jo's little dog - think we might dognap!

Sorry, it's a very doggy blog this time!

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and a Happy and healthy New Year.

TODAY WE REMEMBERED

As we begin our sixth week in Saint-Jean de Losne, we feel that we have made the right choice of winter mooring. There is a great community here, many nationalities but all with something in common, our love of boats and cruising the waterways of France.

Winter Mooring

We have been given lifts to nearby towns for market shopping and to buy coal (thanks Paul & Mal, and Joe) and we are enjoying a pretty busy social life. We took part in our first quiz night last week and had a great time and we didn't come last!

Louhans Theatre

Market Day, A Bunch of Flowers and A Box of Hens ........Of Course.

Would You Buy A Used Rabbit From This Man?

The Monday walking group is a chance to explore the local area with people who know the routes and is a good opportunity to meet and share experiences. 

Monday walks

We also try to walk somewhere each day on our own, even if it's just round the marina basin or to the supermarket with the shopping trolley.

Today we remembered… 

The boating community joined the people of Saint-Jean in a simple ceremony at the Cenotaph, complete with the Town Band and Fire Brigade. Afterwards we were all invited back to the Mairie for a drink - it wasn't like that in Upton…

Remembrance Day Ceremony

The River Rats are organising activities and events for those of us who will be here over Christmas. We are already committed to escorting St Nicholas around the town, singing carols at the old folks home and an evening meal get together. We have also signed up for first aid classes - oh yes, and another quiz.

So there's not a lot of time left for boat work, but we have all winter for that. Just now we are taking every opportunity we can to get outside and enjoy the sun while it is still warm enough to do so. 

We are very lucky because we also have a resident kingfisher (just like 'Kevin' the kingfisher in Upton Marina). He gives us some spectacular fly-pasts. However our French kingfisher is, of course, called 'Martin'. 

Afternoon walk by the Burgogne Canal nearby

The canal just behind the Coal Merchant in Dole

....sorry, we got a bit carried away with the autumn pics. 

WINTER MOORING

Well, we're here! 

Snug as a bug in a rug, we've sadly reached the end of our cruising for this year.

We came off the canal onto the big river Saône after a wonderful descent from Langres, with some spectacular scenery and some brilliant overnight stopping places. Once on the river, the horizons widened and we enjoyed the big open spaces again.

River Saone, Auxonne in the distance

We stopped a night at Pontailler-sur-Saône, where we met up with Frank again. We found an avenue of horse chestnut trees and conkers galore - took the opportunity to replace our conker supplies (spider deterrent). If they fail it will be chemical warfare….

Then on to Auxonne and into the new Port Royal for a couple of nights. The weather was still good and we enjoyed exploring the town and walking along the riverside. Napoleon started his studies here as an artillery officer - his teacher thought he showed some promise…

Then - once more in company with Frank on River Holme - down to St-Jean-de-Losne. Mooring on the steps was full but we were able to moor alongside Frank until some hire boats moved off after lunch. The next day Frank continued south to his winter mooring. We have really enjoyed his company and hope we'll meet up again next year - somewhere.

Thursday we enjoyed lunch with Barb and Derek who had travelled south from Luxembourg to find us and had managed to park their motorhome near the marina. Lovely to catch up with their news and travels. The last time we had seen them was at the jazz festival in Upton. 

Then Thursday afternoon, Les arrived from the south of France to spend a week with us. Excitement late that evening when we heard a deep engine noise and a searchlight was playing over us. It was the biggest boat we had encountered so far - a big River holiday Cruiser - probably 100 bedrooms came in to moor ahead of us. We were thankful we had a boat between us and them! Next morning the passengers boarded a fleet of coaches and were whisked off - who knows where? 

Big neighbour

The forecast was not good for the weekend and the following week, so we decided with Les to enjoy the sunshine on Friday and take a trip up river before taking up our winter berth in the H20 marina and then to do day trips with him in his car to Dijon, Beaune and Dole and Arbois. 

Dole

Arbois

We enjoyed a great week together, lots of laughter, lots of food and 3 days of 'joint birthday fun' as Les and Glen's birthdays are only 4 days apart - a good excuse for extended celebrations.

We've been made really welcome here at St Jean. Jan and Joe off C pontoon made sure we felt at home and told us to listen to Radio Gare d'Eau every morning to find out what was happening each day - and there's plenty going on…. We've already taken advantage of the book swop (upstairs in the Museum of Barging) and Saturday night enjoyed a get together to meet with the fellow live-aboard community here (otherwise known as the River Rats).

Making new friends

Sunday it rained all day and we've decided Autumn has well and truly arrived. Time to stow away the summer clothes and fish out the winter warms. We ordered 2cubic metres of logs yesterday which will arrive on Wednesday and tonight have lit the stove for the first time using the remnants of Nick's logs which we brought with us. It's now over 25 degrees inside and have had to open the door!

First fire of winter

GOING DOWN

This canal just gets better and better.

Heavy rain for 3 days meant we put off leaving Langres. Frank from River Holme very kindly (again) took us to refuel at the big Intermarche up the hill. And although the weather was awful, the company was good - lunch with Frank and Malcolm and Janet from Anthonia was the very best way to wait for the weather to improve. At 8€ for the plat du jour it was also easy on the purse.

Thursday - a break in the weather meant we could tackle the almost 5k Balesmes Tunnel - the one we had the instructions for in Dutch - but hey ho - a tunnel is a tunnel isn't it; just a big black hole you drive into.

 Err not quite. It is one way traffic and takes over an hour to transit. It had also been made very clear to us that we had to use the inter phone at the lock no:1 to clear our passage through. We failed miserably at this - due to a very bad connection on the phone to the control centre and our lack of linguistic skills. So in company with Frank, we decided to go for it and keep our fingers crossed we did not meet a loaded commercial coming the other way.

The tunnel was dark and poorly lit so steering was tense with  both of us on full lookout and Pete trying to find a reference point to steer to.

 We emerged safely into a fierce rainstorm and were then confronted by a staircase of 8 automatic locks - each about 5m deep and very close together - then the wind blew up. But we were 'Going Down' but no time to make a sandwich or a cup of tea. At 4 o'clock we spotted an isolated, overgrown mooring place under some trees, which looked like paradise to us. Drove in some pins and called it a day. We were in bed by 8pm!

Friday morning and thick fog - so no rush then. It soon cleared and we were on our way again. 

This canal is stunning.

 Sun shining - beautiful trees and so many herons, we christened it Heronville.  At lunchtime the landscape had opened out with fabulous vistas and newly harvested fields. We were amazed at the number of herons stalking in the fields and big birds of prey swooping repeatedly. We think the newly harvested fields are leaving no cover for the small mammals and insects and there's a feeding frenzy going on.

Killing Fields

The canal is following the course of the River Vingeanne - and the villages alongside it look beautiful. 

The guide shows various stopping places and we have learnt not to believe until we see it with our own eyes. A number of villages have obviously thought it would be a good idea to create an 'halte nautique' to attract visitors and we're sure they had every intention of providing water, electricity and showers and a visiting boulangerie. Their good intentions went so far as to have really nice signs made telling you about all the facilities and the chateaux to visit in the vicinity. However, more often than not the facilities have not materialised. Up to now we've made good use of picnic tables and small quays to tie up to but today we struck gold! Notre-Dame-des-Lourdes has a long quay with usefully spaced rings; water taps and 40amp electricity supply - yippee! and it's free. Ok, so the showers are locked but there is a very clean toilet open. We're not holding our breath that the boulangerie van is going to turn up between 8.30 and 9.00am tomorrow…  but we may be pleasantly surprised...

Saturday 29 September

Yes! she did come - just before 9 we heard a horn and there she was! Pete has bread for the next couple of days…

Fabulous trip today, lots of locks, lots of kilometres - slight hiccup when the gates at lock 32 didn't open to let us out. 

And the inter phone didn't work - but a phone call and the VNF guy arrived in his van, gave a Gallic shrug of the shoulders and released us.

There are very few stopping places on this stretch of the canal but we struck lucky with a little halte (and picnic table, of course) just after the Oisilly lock. No facilities but a reasonable quay and absolute silence in the middle of the countryside and the sun is shining! 

LANGRES

Well we meant to stay here just two or three days to do some provisioning, look at the town and catch up with one or two jobs on the boat. But some places feel just 'right' and this is one of them. Even though the electric at the halte nautique only comes on for an hour three times a day (not a lot of good for topping up the batteries), and there's an long, uphill walk to the nearest shop, we're planning on staying for a few more days - it feels good.

Lady eclusier operating turning bridge on the way to Langres

Our trip from Rolampont was lovely and we had the help of a charming, young lady eclusier - (needless to say, Pete was very quick to help her with opening the lock gates).
We arrived at Longres Wednesday lunchtime in the sunshine - tied up alongside a pleasant, long quay and set off to the supermarket which was supposed to be 800m away. 
Hmm, the notice didn't say it was up a 1 in 10 hill and we're pretty sure it was more like 1.5 kms. So after this experience we studied the bus timetable carefully as we planned to visit Langres itself on Friday. 

Langres is one of the 50 most beautiful towns in France (well that's what it says in the brochure and who are we to argue?). It stands on a rocky hill some 130m above the Marne river and has been a fortified town since the time of the Gauls and the Romans. It's surrounded by tall walls, gateways and countless towers and looks really impressive from down by the river. As the parapet walk around the town is 3.5km long, you can understand why we decided to take the bus up the town and start the walk from there.

The walk around the town was magic. There are amazing views in all directions and the weather on Friday was perfect with clear views  to the Vosges mountains and even the Alps. The town itself is fascinating with a maze of narrow streets and, of course, a cathedral. At lunchtime, we were enticed to venture up a covered alleyway beside a boulangerie where we found a walled garden area that had been turned into an outdoor restaurant, complete with fountain, shady trees and an aviary. So a very pleasant lunch in the sunshine and our first taste of the special Langres cheese - very good.

Friday was market day, and this time when we boarded the bus we found the journey was free because it was market day - how good is that! There's plenty of towns in the UK that could learn from this.

REACHING FOR THE SKY

As we rise out of the lock......

Since we left Vitry le François, we've been steadily climbing, forty five locks so far and twenty three to go to the summit. We're heading up to the Langres Plateau where we will encounter our first real tunnel, 5 k's underneath the ridge.

We never know what will greet us in the eclusier's garden !!

The landscape is changing as we ascend, we've lost the gentle, sunny slopes of the vineyards and now have steep sided hills covered in mostly deciduous forest, with the occasional plantation of firs, it's almost alpine and very beautiful.

From Chamouilley we were accompanied by our team of two VNF eclusiers, buzzing ahead of us from each lock, on their mopeds, just checking that everything worked at each lock and lifting bridge.

We spent two nights at Joinville where Neil and Angela joined us. They are touring the area in their motorhome and we have been meeting up at small Haltes for the last few evenings and enjoying some good meals together. 

Since Joinville the locks seem to be in better condition and we do not have the VNF eclusiers with us all the time. The canal is really beautiful and the we're spotting many birds of prey sweeping amongst the wooded hills.

The first mists of Autumn shroud the canal when we wake now and we are debating digging out the winter duvet, but the days are still fine and warm with clear skies and lots of sunshine and forecast to be the same until next Thursday, when it will rain. We shall see.

We're at Chaumont, on a quiet quayside with electric and water, N & A will leave us tomorrow to continue their route homeward and we shall walk into town for supplies and probably a coffee or two.

Canals with Character

We were given a 'zapper' at the Lock called Desert just outside of Vitry-le-François - this apparently operates most of the locks on our route but not all. Others, are worked by radar, twisting pole or travelling eclusier. We were also given a very detailed instruction leaflet for the 5km tunnel which lies ahead of us. Unfortunately it was in Dutch. We are none the wiser. But no doubt all will become clear when we arrive there (or not). 

The journey yesterday to Orconte was pretty uneventful.  The pilot book warns that the locks fill right to the top in this stretch of the canal which makes life interesting when you're locking up as we are.

Orconte was a very pleasant halte which we shared with a Dutch camper-van (we should have asked them to translate our tunnel leaflet!). Apparently it costs 8€ for water and electric and showers. Unfortunately nobody turned up to collect the money and open the showers - but we did have electric for the night.

Today more overflowing locks - we thought we may well float off into the chicken run alongside this one.

We were accompanied for the day by various members of the VNF (the French equivalent of British Waterways).  All the guys were really helpful and seemed to take great delight in speaking rapid French to us because we had greeted them in their own language. With a a bit of effort and a lot of sign language we managed to communicate our plans for the day - they need to know what time we start and where we plan to moor up at the end of each day. We think they actually accompany us because many of the locks don't seem to quite operate as they should…. their remedy is to go into a shed, pull out a control unit and plug it into a lock gate to release us from the lock. Many of the traffic lights are broken and when you use your zapper to start the lock operating, nothing happens for 3 minutes, then you're startled by very loud bells ringing and eventually the gates begin to close. 

Today we had our first lifting bridge....

This one had to be operated by the travelling VNF guy who had earlier kindly taken our lines in St Dizier, where we stopped for lunch. We had thought that we might stay overnight at St. Dizier but the mooring was a bit industrial and even the sight of the famous Miko ice cream factory nearby could not tempt us - it was overcast and drizzling - if the sun had been shining it might have been a different matter. Instead we pushed on to Chamouilley - no facilities but a really nice village with grassy banks and picnic tables (we think picnic tables usually indicate an 'all right' place to stop). 

Our VNF guy turned up on his scooter and told us exactly where the nearest shop, bar and restaurant could be found and arranged to meet us tomorrow at 9 o'clock

Another nice place...

Arrived at Vitry-le-François Friday evening and managed to tuck ourselves onto the end of the alongside pontoon at the little Halte. Only room for three longer boats and quite shallow but good for us. Moored under the plane trees which are providing us with some very welcome shade as the temperatures have been well into the 30's this weekend. 10€ a night including electric and water - 25€ if you stay 3 nights - so of course we are…

Sunday lunch on Ozzee Crawl

Frank from 'River Holme' (also moored here) is leapfrogging his car and very kindly took us and Peter and Mitch off "Ozzee Crawl" to the big Leclerc hypermarket to stock up on essentials such as beer, wine… oh yes - and water. We were also able to fill our fuel cans which means we can now not worry about the latter end of the Canal entre Champagne et Borgogne where apparently there is neither fuel nor shops. 
Much as we like it here and the company is certainly very convivial, we will crack on tomorrow but probably not at the crack of dawn.