We moored as planned, for once, at Le Guetin where Malcolm and Annette caught us up. En route, this little beauty passed us – just look at the way the cabin lines echo the hull. Stunning and we hovered mid- channel for long enough to admire each others’ taste and take photos. It always comes down to the same thing though; if it’s your home, do you want to stand outside and admire it, or live in it? Still gorgeous.

It being a Saturday, and therefore no ‘plat du jour’ available, I managed to (easily) persuade everybody to try la/le Grenouille for lunch – a place I spotted when we came through before and sited out of town on the old canal. There were frogs everywhere (including legs), but none on our inclusive menus. We sat out in the sun for a beer first and the food was colourful and good. I’d definitely go there again.

Now what I haven’t mentioned is that Charlie and Misty also reside on Rachel, so they moored with a couple of boats between to give the three cats some space. I couldn’t get good photos but they are gorgeous.

The Loire is almost a puddle now, compared to when we came through before – there’s still one hell of a current on it though. I saw my first ever Bee Eaters there.

There was a ‘do’ on outside the moorings in the evening, which we wandered down to, but we couldn’t enjoy it as we were being eaten alive by mossies, so we gave it up.

We set off up the deep staircase locks and across the aqueduct first and then I jumped off and ran back across to take pictures of Rachel coming up and across

This was lovely to see too – one of the old Loire boats

When we arrived at Decize there was a free weekend music festival on – couldn’t turn that one down

Sadly for us, this was the parting of the ways as they continued along the Lateral a la Loire whilst we stayed for G to drive to Paris to fetch his sister and brother-in-law from Australia. Then we would hang a left across the Loire and then a right, up the Nivernais canal.