contentedsouls

The Canal du Somme has other people cruising out and about now; socialising is prevelant again and fitting in skinny days and blogging gets more difficult. On the days we want to move we ‘phone the Somme people (it’s not VNF here) and they are happy to escort us through locks and lift bridges at any time to suit ourselves and always with big smiley faces and plenty of chat. Lunchtime has to be honoured from 12.30 until 1.30 though, so we moored at Frise the first lunchtime which gave me a chance to walk the dogs in the spectacular sunshine

We moored at Cappy on our first night on the Somme and went for a beer at the canalside restaurant. Very strange place. We stood in a ‘shop’ area to drink our beer and they also offered a 3 course meal which, presumably, would also be consumed standing up as there was no apparent place to sit. It was sad to see that the cruiser hire boat centre had closed down last November and there is now nowhere to hire a boat on the pretty Somme. This has to have a major impact on the valley’s economy.

Our second stop was Chipelly which, appropriately, had a frites take away and bar although we frequented neither. When a car had been dropped off in the morning there was an old working punt blocking half of the small mooring. By the time we arrived on the boats it had been moved for us – there are definite advantages to telling them where you’re going. We managed to fit in a supermarket trip, good dog walking, BBQ and a visit to the chairopractor for G.

On our way to the small market town of Corbie a French cruiser passed us and asked how G’s back was !!!? Towpath talk. Arriving at the excellent Corbie moorings I had my first meet with new facebook friends ,Heather and Tim, who also knew about G’s back being bad, as did the checkout lady in the supermarket!! Heather and Tim were on the Somme, primarily, for Anzac day with Belgian and Aussie friends in a motor home and we all met up on their deck for drinks. G joined them on the Saturday for Aussie rules footie against the local French team. Friends left yesterday and we will catch up with them later on. Tonight we’re off for drinks on a Danish barge, so that’s G’s skinny day out of the window….again.

I know it’s too small to live on but the boat in the last picture is gorgeous – if only it was a little wider and a little longer. The big barge is an hotel boat which disembarked it’s passengers on Sunday morning before swabbing the decks and re-provisioning. It left this morning with it’s new passengers back towards the horrid Canal du Nord.