Spring 2019

Well, here we were again, all anxious to get started on this year's cruise, though it may be a few weeks yet and may well be a long one!  Louise has taken over writing the blog and as her style is a lot less pithy than Alex's you may have to have a few more minutes to read the following!!-

We booked into Decize for July/August to enable a return to England for a protracted summer stay.  Last year we decided, after sweating it out for weeks in France in mid-July, that it would be rather nice to enjoy some of what England (and Scotland maybe) has to offer in the lovely summer weather at home.  There's so much that we don't get to see and do, being in Europe for the summer.

Our return to RICCALL was timed to avoid the dreaded Brexit!!  And so we returned on the 27^th with minimal fuss and no delay.  Of course, the first job was to stash all the stocks we had brought from home and which are un-available in Europe.  Then we had to turn our attention to the state of the boat itself!

Inside, everything looked dusty and rather down-at-heel, so a total spring clean was in order.  But more importantly, from a pride perspective, was the exterior of RICCALL!  She was looking more than a little down in the mouth – dirty and uncared-for.  Last year, we did a good job of painting the topsides of the saloon – taking the old paintwork down to the metal and starting from scratch.  That paintwork has survived remarkably well over the winter, so we'll be doing the same thing with the well deck this year.  It's normally a bit of a storage area, and can as a result become a bit scuffed.  Our new two pack paint will help but it will require a complete back-to-the-metal approach again!  Ah well – we need something to keep us occupied.

While we were in Seneffe doing these essential maintenance jobs, we took a couple of days out to visit friends, Paul and Diane of BEATRICE, winter-moored near Gorinchem (by car!) who live aboard their barge.  The usual great socialising was the order of the day, of course.

A visit to Holland isnt' complete without one of these! 

 We'd planned for departure day to be around the middle of April this year, but we then heard the sad news that we had to return to England for a funeral.  With almost 3 weeks to go though before the funeral, we decided to return to Kent and carry on with house stuff, perhaps taking a trip up to Scotland for a weekend, all of which we managed before the event: as ever, a sad affair though beautifully managed to be both respectful and uplifting.  Then it was back to RICCALL and set off the very next day.

Lovely to get back aboard and on the way – a little later than expected admittedly – but we have heard that there are serious concerns about water levels in middle France which may require a change of plan.  To The Midi or not?  Who knows?  So on we go, with a few weeks to go before we have to make a definite decision on our route.  A hold-up at our second lock however caused us to decide to stay topside overnight but then we safely crossed 'lovely' Charleroi!  Although still heavily industrialised there are signs of improvement – the industrial site opposite the steel works (chemicals?) is now being demolished, though it will be some time before it will be completed.  But perhaps some time in the not-too-distant-future Charleroi may be rather less daunting for the boater!

Well, the traverse of Charleroi was done without incident and we moored up for a night with fellow boaters Lynda and Steve on LYNEVE at Auvelais.  The fair was in full swing as we arrived but on the opposite bank, so perhaps we wouldn't be disturbed!  And so it was.  The conditions of use must have decreed a close-down by 9.30pm as all was quiet. 

The countryside after Charleroi is always something of a revelation, even though we've done this route several times.  It is quite lovely, especially in springtime – rural and seemingly very remote. 

After this pleasant interlude came Namur – allegedly a rather interesting city – where we met up with Julian, our narrow-boating friend (on SANTANNA) who had found a free mooring in the city. (Julian is just marvellous at finding free moorings!)  He reckoned there was plenty of room for us. 

And there was indeed plenty of room in the 'cheap seats'!!  We had a great evening with Julian on RICCALL, and were invited for a return match the following evening.

In between, we did a short reccy of Namur and we both feel that we must have missed something, because we were somewhat underwhelmed by the city.  A little more research required next time we think.

When we did eventually set off the next morning, the weather had deteriorated somewhat, so that we encountered cool temperatures, 'April' showers and at times sleet and even snow in those showers!  But the River Meuse was mercifully devoid of any kind of traffic, commercial or pleasure so we had the locks largely to ourselves.  One of our favourite moorings was on the near horizon, so we made for Anhée/Houx – a mooring which we'd used several years ago, along with Nicci and Peter of AURIGNY, who were painting their hull.  Part of this quay is at river level, meaning you can paint the hull of your boat right down to the water-level.  This is a rarity, as most moorings are much higher than river level.  Unfortunately, although we would have liked to paint the sides of the hull, the weather was just too cold.  Another missed opportunity!  But then we thought - hang on! We're going to come out of the water this year anyway, so we'll do it then.  Of course, this plan all depends on WHERE we end up towards the end of the season! 

The Meuse was running moderately fast as we battled through squally showers of sleet and snow at one point, but the next day was much quieter.  The season hadn't started up yet so there were very few boats around making lock use much easier.

But of course, that was then!   Next day we were 'inundated' by pleasure boats, so much so that when we arrived at Vireux-Wallerand 10kms upstream from Givet, there was no room at the proverbial inn!  We had to make do with a sloping side and rocky bottom for overnight.  Next morning we set off and soon noticed one of the pleasure boats was coming up behind us, which turned out to be a lucky break as our remote control to operate the locks failed to work, as it had yesterday when a  lock-keeper helped out.  Luckily ELISE noticed and interpreted that we were sitting at a red light at Montigny Lock, so operated their remote, which did indeed work.  Louise phoned VNF who met us at the next lock with a remote to exchange.  (So he DID understand my message! - says Louise, somewhat amazed that her French got the point across.)

Glad the Meuse never got this high while we were on it!!

And then it rained, and rained, and rained: so much so that at 1pm we decided to moor up and try for a 'menu du jour' at a recommended restaurant.  It was very swish and elegant, but no they didn't do a menu du jour except at weekends and on jours féries, but hey, wasn't today, May 8^th, the commemoration of the Liberation of France from German military activity?  After all, we saw and heard the band playing the Marseillaise and the maire making his speech as we moored up in Haybes!  

Haybes Mairie

Haybes Maire making his speech in the rain

French holidays are a complete mystery to us; we've been doing this cruising lark for over a decade now and still we can be surprised.  But no restaurant lunch for us that day.

So we moved on and the rain got worse and worse and heavier and heavier.  We hadn't factored this into account until we set off from our Charleville-Mezieres mooring, 

Favourite mooring in Charleville-Mezieres

re-entered the river from the lock cut and suddenly we were making just 5kph, instead of our more normal 8!  Of course this is the inevitable result of a lot of rain but we just hadn't got our heads round it.  We flogged upstream for about 6 kms but had to admit that this was costing us a lot of money in extra fuel and sitting it out seemed a good plan  We knew of a really good floating pontoon ahead at Lumes, amazingly virtually empty, so moored up expecting to stay a day or so.   Well, we were there for three days and still no sign of the river returning to normal.  

In between, we socialised with HAVELOK's Helen and Mathew and PERIDOT's Chantelle and Claude and did a day trip by train (lucky to have an adjacent station) down the beautiful Meuse valley and back, dropping into C-M for late afternoon drinks.  Then the following day we went on a long (very long) bike ride to find fresh milk. Regular readers will know that this is how we manage to see so much of France – looking for bloody fresh milk for Alex's cornflakes!  (NB – we failed to find any milk despite being in the region's biggest Cora hypermarket!)

Still stuck, still waiting for the flow to subside, we decided to make the most of our enforced 'rest' and tackled the now rather forlorn-looking wheelhouse roof.  Just a temporary holding job this time as we will have the job done later in the year when we come out for hull blacking, but it looks just SO much better.  We don't see it of course, but all the gongoozlers standing by the sides of locks as we enter from downstream do and we Brits can't let the side down, can we?  After all with the Brexit saga still playing (or so we gather) we're already in the mire as far as other nationalities are concerned.

So eventually, once the flow had reduced to 2.5kph (Alex has his own method of working this out) we felt it was time to move on and spent a long day still plodding up the Meuse to a lovely spot in Mouzon.  Amazingly the only mooring we can use in Mouzon – at the Capitainerie end of the quay – was free and we shot in.  We think it had been vacated by SIYABONGA earlier in the day because we came bow to bow upon them in a narrows upstream of Donchery lock No 39.  That gave us all a surprise and we were most impressed that SIYABONGA could stop on a sixpence, letting us go through.  However, Alex was quick to point out that he was 'pleased' that even SIYABONGA with her amazing stopping power still ended up across the canal because of her prop walk!  Our own prop walk is much better than it used to be following radical implant surgery on our rudder – see previous instalments.

We were at Mouzon then when we received a WhatsApp from our friends on ETTIE Richard and Julia, asking us where we were.  We'd rather lost any hope of catching them now that we were at least 3 days behind schedule, but it now seemed possible that we just might catch them at St Mihiel in a few days time.  We were both going to stop in Toul for home visits, so if all else fails, we can do our socialising then.  On RICCALL we were both already getting excited at the prospect of a meal in our favourite French restaurant of all time – in the former station building in the little village of Lucey, north of Toul.  It seems that it is still operational, but so many French restaurants have closed especially in small villages.  They really are up against the change in retail and eating habits.

Then onto the 'manual' section of the Meuse where the locks have to be operated by a roving éclusier.  This makes the whole experience more of a race against time than a quiet go-as-you-please cruise, as you have to tell the éclusier where you intend to stop overnight and your preferred set-off time for the following morning, which means you can't easily stop at a place you happen upon and like, though you can, of course, telephone to tell them your intention.  Of course, you don't do that, as it seems unfair to have an allocated éclusier for the day and then stand him down!  So it's two or three days of this imposed timetable and we'll be happier when we can go back to automatic lock operation.  Why this section has missed out on upgrading we don't know.

Lock cottage at Alma - our absolute favourite (for renovation)

Consenvoye was next in our sights and we set off to recce the little town and see if we could perhaps find somewhere to eat, it being a Saturday evening, and we had failed at Mouzon.  We briefly spoke to Paul and Jacky of EMMA who were moored up when we arrived.  There was indeed a little restaurant, and yes, it was open, but no, we couldn't eat there that night.  Our limited French failed to quite grasp why not, but it was very clear that there would be no cooking that night in the auberge, or at least not for us: perhaps it was going to host a private party, or they didn't have a chef?  Who knows?

So it was back to the boat for curry with all the trimmings!  But when we approached the boat our faces fell as we saw five young lads on off-road scrambler bikes, unloading their paraphernalia for their overnight fishing experience!  But we have to say, they conducted themselves perfectly, even for two of them to come to us on our boat and apologise for the noise they were making, of which there was none!  It was so funny to watch them putting up their tents: it was like a scene from It's a Knockout!  

The lads camping and fishing overnight adventure

But the night passed without a sound and they were up early in the pouring rain, keeping their fire alight and making hot drinks.  When we left they gave us great waves and 'bon voyages'.  It was great.

Our next mooring was at Stenay - on an old high quay.  Perfect for us of course, but not, it became apparent, for the swallows whose nests we had masked: they spent some considerable time flying at our portholes, trying to find a way through!!

We set off at 9.30am - a time chosen by the éclusiers (and a bit early for Alex!) for the day's travel to Verdun: an easy day with a pleasant lock-keeper who earned himself two bottles of beer!  Considering the paucity of boats around we were somewhat amazed to find Verdun rather occupied, though the quay which we wanted was empty, so all was well.  

For some reason we were both exhausted by 8pm so it was an early night for Louise and a stupid sci-fi film for Alex!

We set off from Verdun for a 10am start at the first lock upstream, but although the gates were open for us when we arrived, when the éclusier tried to close the tail gates, there was something preventing one of the gates from seating properly.  Something was clearly on the cill.  He must have had a premonition of what it might be as he immediately went for his long pole, then his grappling hook!  The pole failed but the hook caught a very long piece of ancient rusty chain.  Once that was on the side, we were off again.

Lock gate failed to close

The offending chain!

One more day with an éclusier and then 'freedom'.  This time our éclusier was a rather dour chap, but he softened a lot when he realised that Alex would do his share of closing and opening gates, even to the extent of taking our ropes, quite unnecessarily in several locks.

A lovely quiet night in Ambly mooring, 

another sociable night in St Mihiel, two overnights in Sampigny, where we sought out the lovely Musée Poincaré (Poincaré was President of France after the war) 

From the sublime . . .

to the ridiculous!!

and one stop for stocking up in Commercy.  

We were very lucky to be able to moor on the pontoon in Pagny with three other boats although mooring above and below locks is easy enough on the Meuse at this point.  Then it was into Toul, but not the Port de France for us!   We moored below the lock out of the Port de France on a long, free, wooden staging and there RICCALL stayed for the whole of Louise's trip to England.  Luckily, our friends Richard and Julia were returning home themselves for a christening and wedding (separate events!) and were happy to give Louise a seat in their car.  Purpose of Louise's visit? - to meet her new granddaughter Joni.

Back at Toul, we moved RICCALL down the canal to the TSNI moorings (formerly Lorraine Marine) 

and spent three days while waiting for fuel painting the hull sides – remember those hull sides which needed repainting way back when?  The very same, but we got them done this time!

 

Alex hard at work

Job's a good 'un!