contentedsouls

4 locks and 5.5 km

There was not one, but two bar/restaurants in Treveray. Unfortunately they were 1km away and it peed down with rain all night and all day so we didn’t fancy going out to lunch in full wets. It’s been yonks since we had a drink out let alone a meal,as we are deep in rural France, and neither of us wanted a wine free lunch so that we could drive – rather wait until we get to the civilisation of Ligny. We ventured out in the car instead and did our Christmas food shop – I use the term ‘food’ loosely as it seemed to consist mostly of alcohol, chocolate, biscuits, nuts and cheese: it might be the 4:3 diet throughout January!

We had booked passage, yesterday, for today’s cruise and decided that 4 locks and 5.5km would be sufficient if we were going to experience similar problems to Thursday’s cruise, also more rain was forecast. That’s the only problem we’ve encountered here travelling in the winter – so far – you have to ‘pre-declare’ your finishing point.

This morning we were woken at 7.30 by a passing peniche (the 3rd in 3 days) to discover it wasn’t raining. What’s more, we didn’t have to remind them to set the lock; a man in a VNF van came out and set lock 11 for us at 9.45. I wasn’t going to risk the leap again so Muttley and I left G and MR descending and set off for L12. As we rounded the bend I spotted the light – red; gate closed. My heart sunk and I really didn’t feel up to the conversation this morning that now had to take place. I rehearsed in my head and pushed the button, determined to be jolly, ‘bonjour, ca va?’ yes it was the same chap from Thursday. Please could you open the gates? Instead of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ I received a torrent of French of which I only caught ‘English boat’.  I replied that yes it was us again and would he open the gates please and he hung up. Nothing’s happening with the gates, G has now arrived on MR and is gesticulating for me to contact him again but I didn’t know if he’d said he was sending someone or not; in fact I didn’t have the faintest idea what he’d said. I did, of course, have to go back to him and the gates opened – why he didn’t do it the first time I have no idea!

By now, G and I had established a theory that we weren’t sufficiently tall enough for the detectors to realise we’d left, so the gates weren’t closing behind us and, therefore, the next lock wasn’t setting. So, as he left, he waved something at the detector on a long pole. I approached L13 and – it was red….aaaargh! Then, miraculously, it went to red and green and set, as did L14. L15 went to green and then broke down – what did we care; we’d moored up by then. A man in a van came out and fixed it and gave us a remote control unit, so only 3 more of these daft locks before we are masters of our own destiny again.