Before we left France at the end of November last year, we’d already decided to spend more time in the UK during 2024 than we've done in recent years. This meant we would be leaving Chalkhill Blue for longer than normal during the winter period. It doesn’t take long to winterise a narrowboat, unlike larger boats and barges; it takes less than 15 minutes to make sure all the batteries are isolated and charging from the solars, the water and gas are off and all water outlets are opened in case of freezing conditions. Before setting off for the Eurotunnel, or LeShuttle as it’s now been rebranded, we had a final day in the port spending the time with our neighbours, Alistair and Sabine.
During the morning, Alistair and I wandered up to the lock above our mooring to watch a passing commercial start its ascent up the flight of eight locks as it headed north towards Reims. The boat was called Feeling and since we first saw it five years ago it has remained one of my favourite names for a péniche. As Feeling entered the lock the lady on board climbed up the ladder at the side of the lock and disappeared into the village leaving her partner to bring the boat up. He made short and effortless work of it on his own, having obviously done it countless times before.
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| Feeling looking like it won’t fit |
The locks on the canals in this part of France are the smallest used by commercial craft and are built to the Freycinet standard introduced in 1879 to cater for 38.50m x 5.05m péniches. The standard dictates that the Freycinet locks must be a minimum of 39.0 metres long and 5.20m wide to accommodate these barges. It’s always amazing to us to see these boats skilfully brought into the locks without touching the sides.
As the lady went up the ladder the guy left his cabin and walked to the front to get a line over a bollard as the boat slowly made its way forward.
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| Getting his line on |
He then kept the line taught as the boat neared the far gates under its own momentum:
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| Nearly in |
The boat came to a halt inches from the cill and the guy went back to his cabin while the gates closed behind him, the lock started filling and the boat rose.
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| Just enough room |
The lady’s timing was impeccable, returning as the boat started leaving the lock through the now opened top lock gates. It then became clear where she'd been as she had an armful of baguettes. As we said our farewells, I noticed the guy was wearing slip-ons and I had to admit I was surprised as I certainly wouldn’t feel safe walking along the gunwales in that type of shoe.
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| It was also the end of November so not exactly sock-free weather! |
A few days after returning to the UK I received an alert from the French rivers and canal authority (VNF) that a lock on the Rhine was out of action as a boat had crashed into the top gates. The control of the driver here was clearly totally in contrast to that of the guy on Feeling that we'd watched a few days previously. Researching a little further I found out that the boat was the 110m long La Primavera that we'd encountered a couple of times on the Moselle in the past.
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| What happens when it goes wrong… |
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| …and from another angle |
Fortunately, the locks on the Rhine are in pairs so at least traffic could continue whilst the gates were repaired, albeit with some hold ups while boats had to wait their turn in the backlog caused by only having one lock in operation. Amazingly, La Premavera was practically undamaged and was able to continue its journey. What was also amazing was the speed that stop gates were put in so that the damaged gates could be removed awaiting replacement.
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| Stop gate installed on the same day |
Later I found out that the lady driving the boat was intoxicated and, as the German police reported, she had clearly had more than a bottle of beer. How true it is I don’t know but an article in a German paper suggested that the gates would cost around €1.5M to repair.
Soon after returning home we were off again, this time to spend Christmas in Norway for the wedding of Matthew, Karen’s oldest son, to his Norwegian partner, Veronika. It was a traditional Norwegian affair which, although being quite different to weddings we’re used to, was a wonderful occasion and we were warmly accepted by Vero’s family whom we were meeting for the first time.
One of the reasons we’d decided to spend longer in the UK during 2024 is because we’d moved to Flecknoe in Warwickshire at the beginning of last year and had spent very little time there. In the short time we were there we realised that we’d made the right choice buying a house in the village as we’ve been made to feel most welcome and love the variety of country walks available to us from our doorstep. We’ve also got involved in various village activities including being members of our pub’s ladies and men’s skittle teams. Our teams are in the local league which has three divisions for the ladies and the same for the men. Currently we men are at the bottom of the lowest division and the ladies are doing well in the first division.
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| Karen practising at our local |
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| Action shot from a match at The Friendly at Frankton |
Karen is a better player than I am and to put the difference in context, in addition to our teams being at opposite ends of their respective leagues, she plays every week whereas I sometimes get dropped. A skittle table has come up for sale in a pub in Braunston, the teams that currently use it are transferring to another pub there that already has a table hence this one becoming available. In the interests of retaining some fascinating history (as well as improving my game 😉) I’ve bought it and will be picking it up at the end of the season.
Another reason for wanting to spend more time in the UK is because of our ever-expanding number of grandchildren. In February our sixth, Emmy, was born to Polly and Lochlann who’d recently moved to the Welsh valleys. With our seventh grandchild due in June, a family holiday in August and a further one in October celebrating my 70th it looks like being a busy family year.
Although we’re going to be busy at home this year, we have booked some time in Malta at the beginning of May and hope to spend a couple of weeks or so in July visiting Matthew and Vero in Norway. As for France, we’ll have a couple of trips this year; going out in May for five weeks or so and then again in September. The first trip will be to move the boat up to the German border near Saarbrücken, where we’ve hired a dry dock so we can black the underside of the boat during our second trip to France. We haven’t yet worked out what we’ll do once we’ve blacked the boat but that doesn’t matter as it’s six months away yet.
As for butterflies, it’s been a slow start to the year and at the time of writing we’ve only seen brimstones, small tortoiseshells and a peacock on the wing. Brimstones were first on 17th March when we saw a couple of dozen on an unusually warm day compared with the dismally wet start we’ve had to 2024.
The next update should be heading its way to the blog next month, hopefully from sunny France.
