contentedsouls

Monday morning we drove to the supermarket to stock the new fridge freezer. I needed enough for about a week as we planned to leave the car by the station again – the plan being to do the non-food shopping in the afternoon. It was too hot and we couldn’t be bothered, so decided to move up into the little port in the morning which was nearer to the shops. An overnight stay on the Tuesday would also provide us with water and electric and allow me to catch up with 3 or 4 loads of washing. 1 lock and 1 kilometre and we pulled in to the VNF port onto a decrepit, bouncy finger pontoon. Here we spotted NB Last Farthing but there was no-one home.

When we discovered that our shore power connector wasn’t compatible with the electric supply, it was a unanimous decision to abandon the retail, fill with water and leave. We found a lovely overnight mooring opposite the Marie’s office at Fontaine-les-Clercs where Daisy spent several happy hours decimating the local mouse population.

We set off in the morning in spectacular weather and thought we might do a really long day as we’d moved so little recently. However, at lunchtime G spotted this fabulous island mooring. There is no access other than by boat and we have shade (we’ve been having temperatures of consistently above 30 degrees here), a brick built BBQ with cut logs supplied, boule pitch, picnic tables and good canal access for the dogs. As there is no-one for the dogs to bother and no security issues it means we can leave all doors and windows open to keep the boat as cool as possible and the menagerie can come and go as the mood takes them. It is also the perfect place for G to do a bit of welding (repairing loops and chains on mooring pins) and get on with re-painting the back end.

It is so perfect that, although it’s cooler today (only 25 degrees), we’ve just stayed and I have no intention of moving until we run out of food; which might have been quite soon now, but Debs and Kevin have rung to say that they are going to stop over with us on their way back to the UK either Sunday or Monday and I’m sure they’ll bring us fresh supplies. G did, at one point, try and make a run for it when we ran out of beer!

I know we can’t stay here forever, but it’s very difficult to leave somewhere that is perfect, as anywhere we go to now won’t be as good.