August 2017

We reached Carcassonne in time for Sarah, Shaun and their boys to visit.  The extremely hot day ended with a slight shower, threatening thunder storm. But this didnt affect us, as we were in a restaurant while the whole storm passed us by.

Someone left a lock gate or overflow open overnight causing severe water shortage in the canal, and a stoppage of boat movement.  So we had to wait over an hour, floating in the middle of the harbour in a stiff breeze, before we were able to leave Carcassonne.
This got worse at we arrived at Trebes, and with the backlog of queued boats, it took 4 hours to get through the staircase lock.  Tempers were getting very frayed by this time.

Then we were on a tight timetable to reach Narbonne in time to greet Andy and Marina.  Our stay in Narbonne was not any more pleasant that our previous winter stop there.  Unfortunately for us there was a big summer festival being held by the quay, with very loud music playing well into the early hours.  So we moved our boat out of port to moor by the theatre. There we had a group of loud, bad tempered tramps, and one even jumped inside the boat one evening when he saw Ni taking Tashi for her evening walk.  I dont know who was the more surprised at his appearance!  Obviously he hadnt realised there was anyone else onboard.  So we cut short our stay, and vowed never to return to Narbonne by boat.

Tashi enjoyed her day at the seaside!

So we scuttled back up to Salleles d'Aude where we stayed for nearly two weeks. This transpired to be an expensive stop over as our engine batteries needed replacing.  Then we got a tanker to fill our heating fuel tank with red diesel, and phone dongle and phone top-up was renewed.

On Assumption day (16th August) some good citizens of Salleles d'Aude followed the procession carrying a representation of the Virgin Mary.