Needless to say, we could bear it no longer and untied our ropes for a (very) quick trip around the port when we hoped no-one was looking!

Another first for us was a delivery of 400 litres of fuel from a tanker; currently paying £0.79 pence per litre for white diesel. This was the first time that G hasn’t had to fetch it in containers. Our red diesel tank holds only 60 litres and is  only connected to the generator at the moment as the previous owners never spent the winter on her and, therefore, never needed to worry about running the diesel central heating. In due course we shall install a bigger tank connected to the heating.

There are a family of Coypu living in the Port and we get visits most days; G has been feeding them on apples and they come begging for them around tea time. We also spotted one perched on our ‘battering ram’ at the bow on Christmas night (there must be a more technical term).

Peter and Jan rounded up all the ‘orphans’ staying in port at Christmas and invited everyone round to their big barge for dinner. Everyone was allocated components to cook and then we split the cost between us. We were 17 sat down to dinner and 7 dogs plus 4 more people dragged in off of the towpath for mince pies and wine – whether they wanted them or not! Great fun was had by all and rounded off with a quiz before deteriorating into (bad) charades. A lot of people seemed a bit taken aback when G set light to the Xmas puds – including some of the Brits.

Boxing day isn’t a bank holiday here and so we wandered up into town for a change of scenery. Glorious to be sat outside enjoying the sun without coats in late December.

Just before Christmas we had a run out to the Cave of J. B. Clair a small family business who specialise in Champagne – although they can’t call it that as they’re not situated in the correct Region – our gain, as we were able to buy excellent quality fizz @ 7.50 euros a bottle! They had a free tasting, tour and nibbles day which made a change. I love all the old bottles sunk into the wall

I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas and I wish you a very happy 2016 in case I don’t get back here before then.