When we left this morning (not until 10.45am as we had a problem with the hot water heater) we were, supposedly, going to the city(?) of Charleville Mezieres. The weather was glorious and I really didn’t fancy city living in the heat – plus we’d had a bit of a shufty in the car the other day when we’d sorted our comms out and I’m more of a country girl. So we set off with an open mind and the first lock was just round the corner where the cruiser in front closed the gates on us (we seem to be a bit of a threat to the cruisers), so I swanned about for a bit to kill time and a Belgique boat turned up coming into the lock behind me. G climbed the ladder and sorted out their ropes but they were clueless and had 3 attempts at ramming me. Ho hum, the damage would be theirs, not ours.

They roared past me as I left and were long gone by the time we hit the second lock. Pressed the RCU; lights red and green (lock setting) green light and in we go. G hit the blue rod (start button) and …. absolutely nothing. He climbed the ladder and found two red lights on the far side = Lock out of service.

So a phone call from the lock that we had a problem, which was acknowledged, and I sat it out in the baking heat at the bottom of the lock, waiting to be rescued. I thought it would be hours before they sent an engineer as it was lunchtime – lunchtime tends to last from 12 – 3! Amazingly, someone was with us in about 45 minutes although I became immensely bored with the view out of the back of the lock gates.

The 3rd lock of the day was round a blind bend but went very smoothly – the 4th lock I didn’t get MR into the side in time – I thought the control point was a lot further down, so had to reverse up and have another go – we by-passed the city and encountered a load of army guys on manoeuvres.

Then found a nice bit of bank amongst the trees.

Before taking the dogs (with Daisy in convoy) for a swim (even Muttley) and a bit of playtime