June 2015

Well, as the saying goes "Time passes quickly, when you're having fun". How true! Suddenly, on 17th June,  we find ourselves at Villeneuve sur Yonne.

This, after meeting a large commercial peniche on a tight corner of the Canal du Loing after lock 7, and spending a peaceful night moored before the lock at Neronville.

Neronville, no boulongerie, no shops, nothing - only us!

We moved along to spend another night at Epsisy, and then on to St. Mammes, one of our favourite moorings.  Here we met Wendy and David in their boat, King Fisher, who not only know Ni's cousin Martin Sadler, but live just a few hundred yards along the road from friends of ours in Wimborne. Small world!

The post we were hoping to collect at St. Mammes had arrived the same day as we did, and the Capitaine, Laurette, very kindly picked it up from the tourist office in Moret-sur-Loing, for which we were very grateful as it saved us a cycle ride in the heat of a hot 34C afternoon!

On the Saturday morning we were awoken to the sounds of boats being prepared for the Flammbe de Jousters

 The area had organised a local 'Olypic games' of various sports around the region and they were pasaing 'The flame' from one sport/area to another as the games moved on. Here at St. Mammes the red boat was one one side of the Seine and the blue boat the other side. The two boats met in the middle and the flame was passed from one to the other, thus carried on its next destination.

The following day we spent an anxious afternoon as the jousters spent the time swishing back and forth in their boats across the stern of our boat, while challenging their opponents to the 'duel'!. They only knocked into our boat twice, after closely fending off a few more times. Hopefully no paint was lost!!!

From St. Mammes we sped up to Montereau where we managed to renew our SFR dongle and so had again connections to the outside world. Hooray!

When we moored at Pont-sur-Yonne we were delighted to be joined by Hebbes with its crew of Dinny and Simon. As there was no more available mooring space they rafted alongside us and we spent a pleasureable eveing dining and playing Mexican trains.


At Sens we were joined by the boat Silver Steel with its crew of Gordon and Dianne who we remembered meeting in our first year in France at St. Mammes. We passed the evening reminiscing about all our doings over the past few years. Plus, they are from Middleborough so we talked of goings-on in the north east and childhood memories of Tyneside.

We waited in Sens for the much heralded Train de Bois, travelling from Clamecy to Paris in celebration of the 400 year old practice of floating logs to keep Paris warm during the cold winter days. The Flottage was a mere representation of the original flottage which shot down the rapids of the Yonne before the canalisation of the river, which must have been quite a hazardous journey.

Train de Bois leaving Sens, on its way to Paris

I had the most fabulous birthday in celebration of my 70th year, and saved our special dinner out until we could be joined by our friends, Nicky and Tony, in Villeneuve sur Yonne, where we dined at the Auberge La Lucarne aux Chouettes.

Villenueve sur Yonne, one of our favourite places.

I indulged in my favourite French food of all time!

Oeufs en Meurette, though they do vary both with content and quantity!, but basically its poached eggs in a Boeuf Bourguignon sauce with toasted or fried bread.

After dinner we returned to the boat and enjoyed the cake, which Nicky had given me,  consisting of chocolate brownies topped with a candlabra which we enjoyed!

Although there were plenty of free mooring places at Joigny, we stopped at the Locaboat marina for two nights 20/21 June. Much to Nigel's disgust our tv wasn't working, no picture, no sound, and he wanted to watch the Austrain Grand Prix. So after much fiddling with wires, fittings etc, eventually a temporary solution was found which allowed him to watch the actual race on Sunday.

We did the very gentle journey from Joigny to Laroche St. Cydroine and found Nicky and Tony still tied up at Simon Evan's boat yard, although now only 3 boats out, as opposed to their previous 5 boats out!

Archangel, Those flowers are going to take a lot of watering!

Now we're sitting at Laroche St. Cydroine  killing time, whilst doing more maintenance, because we have a new fuel tank being delivered to St. Florentin, and we dont want to stay there too long.

I was woken this morning by faint tip-tapping sounds on the cabin roof. So I got up to investigate, only to find grey wagtails hopping about devouring the many insects which had committed suicide on our roof overnight.  It looks like being another fine day with yards of blue skies, and a bank of summer mist rolling towards us from the lock!

Early morning mist, at Laroche St.Cydrione

Well I never thought I would have a dog of mine wearing any kind of coat, but I now do. Tashi has a dog 'mac' and a 'Cool Coat'. The first keeps the rain off her, as well as dirt splashed up from the road. This is particularly helpful when living on a boat, as its difficult to dry a dog and stop all the mud from being spread around the place, not to mention all the towels when she gets wet. And the Cool Coat helps to keep her cool on hot summer days when we are travelling and she just sits in the sun without the shade of the bimini (bridges are too low to allow us to keep it up).

Tashi's mac "OK you guys, if it's that wet,I dont want to go out!!!

Tashi's Cool Coat "This I will tolerate - under sufferance!"