So … where were we? G drove to Roanne and dumped the car in the garage and Pete and Janet were kind enough to feed and entertain him before he set off with Matilda Rose on Monday morning. We had a somewhat convoluted plan to get the two boats back together but, in the end, G cracked on and covered the 270 kms and 122 locks in 6 days – well, all but the last 4 locks and 7 kms anyway. Due to a (dare I say it) very slow hire boat and a lockie that couldn’t be bothered to turn a lock and made him wait for oncoming traffic for an hour, he ended up cycling home to Francoise on Saturday night – cycling back to get MR Sunday morning to finish the job. An heroic journey which, he readily admits, he thoroughly enjoyed with only himself and the boat to worry about. So MR is now on sale at V C Marine Ltd in the UK http://vcmarine.co.uk/boat-sales/matilda-rose.

Friends re-united

Life continues in my Jill bubble with fewer people around now and the bigger waters of the Yonne and Seine beneath our hull. Still a few people left to play with though and we’re going next door to dinner tonight; plus we’ve had Malcolm to stay this weekend and friends coming next weekend.Some of the moorings at the major towns are still uninhabitable due to the floods earlier this year but, as yet, this has not inconvenienced us.

I have now hit technical problems with photos and my IT Dept is out buying patisserie, so i’m just going to hit the ‘publish’ button because i’m in danger of giving up