contentedsouls

If I don’t jump to Metz I’m never going to catch up and we shall be going back the same way to reach Nancy, so I can cover the in between bits as we return.

We did have a bit of excitement en route when we spotted this peeking through the bridge ‘ole – it was quite a tight fit.

We arrived in Metz with Avalon on Thursday and it really is lovely. Avalon went on and winded in front of the bridge and we moored ‘bottom in’ to the pontoon against the poles provided and had a sensational view of the bridge – particularly at night. There was a river monster or two about as well

G and I found ourselves in a rather eclectic musical bar on Thursday night and engaging with the locals fairly effectively – I’m not sure how, but it ended up a rather cheap night out! Unfortunately their loos went kaput so I was escorted to a bar up the road to use their facilities; this, inevitably, involved much explanation, cheek kissing, shoulder shrugging and hand shaking.

Friday morning we set off into the city to explore and lo and behold the Aussies, Peter and Jo, found us again (did I mention that when they popped round in Toul they ate half our dinner). This time they had two more Aussies with them (another Peter and Joan) and, before I knew it, G’s and my skinny day aubergine curry had turned into a curry party for 8 – they did bring some food with them this time (well their friends did). Peter TOO also bought his guitar so we had a brilliant evening. Kevin is there, honest, but up the other end – 8 people on a narra is .. well, quite friendly (not to mention two dogs, two guitars and a cat). Herbie rather wondered why he and Ted weren’t invited.

Saturday the ‘other Aussies’ left and we went round to Peter and Jo’s for dinner – much to our amazement we didn’t have to take our own – and then they ended up back on MR to join us for our annual ‘last night of the proms’ ritual. Sunday morning and the Aussie were off. We joined Kevin and Debs for coffee before they also left just before lunch and that was us Billy no mates again. That is until Monday when Phil and Helen arrived on their Lux motor type barge; so it was round to their boat for drinks until gone midnight.

Not a lot of sleep was had by us either Sunday or Monday as we had a carbon monoxide problem – the last time this happened was also when we’d been stationery on shore power for several days and we have no idea why – the fire hasn’t been lit and all the doors and windows have been open as it’s been glorious. I spent most of the two nights watching the reading on the monitor; not daring to go to sleep in case we didn’t wake up again!

So, a good time was had in Metz with plenty of sight-seeing, kayaking and walking thrown in amongst the socialising. A stunningly beautiful city.

By Tuesday morning we were shattered, but it was time to move on so I set off across the parks with the dogs and returned to find G doing a ‘piece to camera’ in his ‘English as a foreign language’ voice for a French TV camera. Before I knew what was happening the dogs and I had a TV camera in our faces; unusually, I had put a bit of slap on before walking the dogs – unfortunately I’d also put some nice white sudacreme on my zit and split nose. They were also in the boat which was a total tip – G hadn’t even washed the dishes! Oh the shame – there is some consolation however, we have no idea what channel it will go out on or when and the chances of anyone seeing it that knows us is zilch. If the French get the impression that all British narra dwellers are sluts well, I’m afraid, that’s our fault! The camera and sound guys were delightful though.