Saturday 16th August 2008 Damazan

Grey clouds, a few sunny spells and showers, much cooler. We went back to Agen Sud in the car to do some shopping at Carrefour as Mike needed some new oil filters for the car (5€ each there, cheaper than elsewhere). The store was busy and the petrol station had queues as they had reduced the diesel price to 1,25.9€ per litre with a 3€ reduction on shopping if you bought over 30 litres; Mike had taken the jerry cans for petrol and a large can for boat diesel so he filled the latter and added some extra to the car’s tank. We had to queue again to buy petrol as you can’t use the pump again until the last amount had been paid at the cashier’s kiosk. They had no yoghurt at Carrrefour so we called at a new Hyper Casino in Le Passage and I bought a pack, plus a boule and a book of Sudoku games. Home for a late lunch. Mike went to change the oil and filter on the ZX while I got the camera and found maps to go and look at the locks on the Lot. Once he’d changed the oil we set off across the Garonne into Aiguillon, then north through the town to Nicole where there was a canal off the Garonne which leads on to the Lot. We found it, parked the car and walked through a tunnel under the railway to get to Nicole lock. 

The water level was much too far down for navigation, only about 20 cms over the cill. Mike took a few photos and we went to look at the third lock on the river, which is at Clairac (there are only four in use yet, the other is at Castelmoron, as the river has yet to be restored beyond Villeneuve-sur-Lot). We diverted up the hill to the viewpoint at la Croix du Perch de Berre, where a 15m high cross was erected in 1897 on Easter Monday. Took a few photos and went on to Clairac, crossed the river and went to look at the lock. The wide weir had no water running over it but the hydro-electric plant on the far side was running and was using a fair drop of water. Back home for a salad for dinner while we watched the news. Team GB won four gold medals at the Bejing Olympics, the most for a hundred years. 

Friday 15th August 2008 Damazan

Warm and sunny with occasional showers. Mike went to buy a loaf before going on the moped to collect the car from Valence. Gave him a hand to get the bike off the roof down the plank. While he was away I cleaned the roof off (again) as there was tree debris and masses of insects (loads of grey froghoppers and little scale bugs) and sticky sap all over it. The French woman on Mongenster, a little Luxe moored opposite, had just finished cleaning her boat down using a hosepipe. Mike had said quite loudly that there were signs on the water taps in the port that drinking water must not be used for washing boats! I had used canal water with bucket and string. It started to rain before I’d finished but I carried on to get all the mess off. Mike called at 1.00 p.m. to say he was at Valence and was setting off in the car. He said Roy had told him that Shebah-Mike had gone off on his holidays with his family on board; the couple who owned the yacht we moored next to had come to their boat, took the sheets off it and the woman got stung as there were wasps on the boat so they’d gone away again; the people who owned the cruiser Cathy had also been and taken their boat out – they went up to Moissac and out on to the Tarn without a chart, got stuck on some rocks and had to call the pompiers and divers out! We missed all the fun! Our space had been taken by a wide beamed narrowboat owned by Belgians, who had left their boat and gone on holiday and the Swiss couple who had the little Luxe Bon Aventure had moved it into the gap next to Charles’s pénichette and gone home. We had an afternoon siesta. Mike mixed up some acid solution to decalcify the loo pipes as the cap for the tank was accessible while the moped was off the roof. We left it to fizz. (10% HCl solution and it effervesced. Ed ). Once it had done its job we put the bike back on the roof. We watched the BBC news, still rumblings in Georgia as the Russians basically told the USA to mind their own business. 

Thursday 14th August 2008 Auvignon to Damazan

Cold night, sunny spells but mainly grey clouds. Only 16°C when we set off at 9.40 a.m. Before we left Mike cleaned part of the roof using the mop as it was running with condensation. We dropped down Auvignon’s shallow lock, it was automatic and back to the new press button system. No one around so we dropped down ropeless. I carried on cleaning the roof off as it was filthy from tree sap and leaves, etc. I sat out with a cuppa to steer while Mike went in the cabin to check that the new section of pipe in the loo had stopped the leak. It had. The autoroute was close by the canal, traffic making a din and the cyclists had woken up and were bombing up and down the towpath. There were no boats about for the first couple of hours which was nice after the madness of the rushing hordes of the previous evening. 

The first boat we met was a large Loca going so slowly we couldn’t decide if it was tied up or not. A VNF van went flying past us down the towpath as we approached the first of the two locks after the aqueduct over the Baïse. Two hire boats were coming up in 39 Baïse. I turned the pole and hopped off on the aqueduct to take photos of the Baïse. There were two boats on the river, a little day boat from Buzet and a hire boat. Mike took the boat into the lock and I walked down the path to turn the lever (back to the old system again!) waited until the paddles went up, turned the lever again then stepped back on the boat. There were more boats coming up in lock 40 Larderet, which was a very short distance below 39. A France Fluvial and Locaboat went past and we went into lock 39. I turned the lever and waited just a little too long – 

all four paddles had gone up at once and the boat had gone down too far for me to step on the gunwale so I went down the nicely equipped stairs at the tail end of the lock and got back on board as the boat came out. A big blue Moissac hire boat was heading for lock 40, which still had a red light. Mike asked if they’d turned the pole, the American crew said yes, but when Mike said did you get a flashing orange light they said no (which meant they hadn’t turned it hard enough to make it click) he said we’d turn the pole again for them, which we did - that saved them reversing back to it. The light immediately changed from red to green. Back into the jungle. There was a steep 30 foot high bank on the left and so overgrown the towpath looked impassable; the Baïse was close to the right of the canal. 

The cycle path must be at the top of the bank or beyond the trees. Ten minutes later we passed a large French cruiser called Fitzcaraldo from Martigues, we’d seen that one before but ages ago. We almost collected the rods of two fishermen who were well hidden in the herbage on the right bank. There was a road back of the trees, so the canal wasn’t as isolated as we’d thought. I took photos of the lock on to the Baïse as we came to Buzet. There was a hire boat coming into the empty lock to come up off the river. The moorings at Buzet were mostly full, no spaces our size anyway. The quay by the restaurant was also pretty well full - we could have squeezed on to the end in front of River Holme (a big British cruiser) with our bows overhanging the grassy bank, but didn’t feel so inclined. 

The old wooden landing we tied to last time we were there was double moored on both sides by permanently moored private boats. A shortened houseboat péniche called Jeremy was moored (permanently by the look of the quant poles and electricity meter) a bit beyond the basins where a double line of plane trees started. No TV if we’d stayed there. It started to rain. Brolly up and I closed the doors. At 12.15 p.m. I made a cup of soup to warm us up as it was getting damp and decidedly chilly. At 1.00 p.m. we winded and tied on the quay at Damazan at the Nautic hire base (surprised there was enough space). A few minutes later a Loca almost crashed into our bows as it came in to fill the gap. The guy in charge returned from a liquid lunch (breathing fumes to knock you over) and said, very pleasantly, that we had to moor stern to the bank. We said we couldn’t do that as the stern was round and the boat was too long to do that without having something to tie to (there were no pontoons) so we said we’d moor on the far bank. Hotel boat Mirabelle was moored for lunch on the opposite bank, plugged into a special electricity supply in the wall. They guy at the port was very pleasant and asked if we needed water, nope not yet thanks. We tied to the tree roots opposite the private boats at the end of the quay. I cooked some hamburgers and onions for lunch. Mike decided the weather was too grim for a ride on the moped, he’d fetch the car the following day and went up into the town to find the boulangerie and take some photos, then came back for some money and went again to buy a loaf! Two British wide beamed narrowboats moored on the stumps behind us, which had notices saying that they were for the use of the hotel boat Mirabelle only (it had only just left) and any boats found moored there would be fined! French TV was non existent without resorting to putting our other satellite dish up. Later Mike set our gennie up so we could both use our PCs. 

Wednesday 13th August 2008 Bon Encontre to abv Auvignon lock.

Cooler overnight. Grey clouds first thing, brightening up to sunshine and white clouds. Mike took a few photos of the mooring before we left. A cruiser called Bon Vivant went uphill as we were getting ready and a hire boat went past heading downhill (like us) just as we were untying the ropes. The towpath/ cycle piste was heaving with walkers and cyclists even before we got out of bed, we could see shadows on the bedroom curtains. Set off at 10.10 a.m. A little further down the canal towards Agen a large tree was down on the left bank (must have been in last Tuesday’s hurricane) it looked like a rotten carrot the way it had snapped off at the base. On into Agen. In the big basin there were still a few hire boats moored on Crown Blue Line’s  pontoons and there were several boats moored on the grassy bank alongside the road and houses on the right hand bank; wide boat Sainte Margaux among them. 

A few resident Dutch barges were moored a little further on, right next to the railway, by the bridge that leads to the city centre, a mere five minutes walk. We had a red light at the start of the aqueduct so I turned the hanging pole (another short one, I could only just reach by standing on the gunwales) and nothing happened. Through binoculars Mike could see the boat in front descending. As the gates closed behind him I turned the pole again, this time it worked and we got a red/green. The lock was filling so we went on across the aqueduct. The gates opened and we got a green but before we were halfway across the aqueduct the gates closed and the lock emptied! Someone stole our lock! I didn’t think they could do that! 

We hovered at the end of the aqueduct to wait for the three boats to come up and out. They took ages. Ropes flying everywhere. Then they took forever to leave the lock. There were crowds of gongoozlers around the lock including a whole class of kids on bikes on the tail end bridge. Into lock 34 Agen as soon as the hire boats had gone. It was midday. Expecting there had been VNF intervention in the last uphill lockful, I got off with the centre rope as we were on the right hand side of the lock chamber and Mike got off and went over to the cabin (which were now on the left, we hadn’t spotted that) to turn the lever (they’d still got the same levers for activating the automatic sequence as when we were there last time, ie 1994) and got back on the boat, 

then a VNF man turned up and reminded us that you had to turn the lever twice. Once to raise the paddles and again to open the gates. In theory this means that there has to be a member of crew that remains on the lock side. What do single handed boaters do? He turned the lever for us to open the gates and let us out of the empty lock. Two more hire boats were coming uphill in lock 35 Marianettes. They came out and we went in, on the left side this time next to the old lock cabin and the lever, I dropped the rope on a bollard and turned the lever twice. The gates shut but the paddles didn’t open. The VNF man returned in his flatbed van and went to the control box down by the bottom end gates (which was already open and buzzing loudly) fiddled with the controls and came to tell us to turn the lever once, 

the gates close and paddles go up open THEN turn the lever again and get back on the boat (it’s a very old system and can’t cope with two commands at once!) We dropped down and went on our way to lock 36 Chabrières, where yet another hire boat was coming uphill. A young couple on board,  videoing us as we passed. It was the first hire boat we’d seen this year towing a covered “swimming pool” (just big enough for two people to sprawl in) behind them. This time we got the sequence right, after the fourth paddle had fully opened Mike turned the lever again and got back on the boat. The lock emptied and the gates opened! Hooray, got it right! No signs of the VNF now. In fact, when we got to the bottom lock of the flight of four, 37 Rosette, it was completely deserted – no hire boats, cyclists, walkers, picnickers, etc. 

The lock worked perfectly, we dropped down ropeless and the gate opened with no problems. It was 12.35 p.m. lunchtime as we left the bottom. A short section of canal lead on to the old route down to the Garonne, now blocked off by bricking up the arch of the road bridge, and there we met the next hire boat turning the pole for the lock on the apex of the 90° bend. The Spanish crew yelled “Wonderful boat!” in English as they took photos as we passed. The canal below the flight was totally different in character to the one above the locks. Above there were roads and houses and people, down here was jungle on both sides in a shallow cutting with a passable-only-on-foot towpath – the cycle path was somewhere up top of the bank beyond the trees. 

I made sandwiches for our lunch on the move. The canal widened out briefly by the village of Columbe, where there was an old silo and picnic tables, now in use by fishermen. We dived back into the cool green Amazon. At KP116 an old tjalk was moored among the herbage by an old house and behind it was a little tug called Teal from Skipton, we hadn’t seen that boat for a while. No one on board, it looked left for the duration. The moorings at Sèrignac were completely full. We couldn’t have stopped anyway as there was only one possibility of getting satellite TV - right on the end of the mooring - due to the trees. One of the boats that had been moored at Sèrignac, a large British cruiser called River Holme, set off and overtook us. We stopped before we got to lock 38 Auvignon on a long straight and tied next to overgrown old piling where it was deep enough to get right next to the bank. Cyclists went whizzing past level with the tops of our windows. It was 2.50 p.m. Mike had spotted that one of the flexible pipes in the loo was cracked and leaking slightly, so he cut a new length of reinforced tubing to replace it and hacked (carefully removed. Ed). the old piece out while I held the torch so he could see.

Tuesday 12th August 2008 Sauveterre-St-Denis bridge to Bon Encontre

Grey, rain later. We got moving at ten. I cleaned all the leaves and debris (including lots of dead and dying tiny crickets, washed out of the overhanging tree in the torrential rain) which left the roof filthy and very sticky – the price we pay for being in the cool shade under a sappy tree. Less than an hour later we moored just beyond the port de plaisance at Bon Encontre. Three hire boats were moored there, plus two boats which looked like permanent liveaboards (no one home) in the strange basin with a square island. The canal’s summer water level meant the pound was down by about 15 cms, but the floating finger pontoons were sloping at almost 45° - which looked pretty dangerous to us. Mike and I went shopping at the Leclerc hypermarket for essentials like bread and salad. Back for lunchtime, just as it started to rain. We called at the Capitanerie and paid 2,50€ for electricity; we weren’t in the port so we didn’t pay 2,50€ for mooring or 2,50€ for water as we didn’t need any. Moved the boat a bit further away from the port as it was on the bottom, a couple of metres made a difference. Still on 3G. More rain. I did a fragrant beef and chilli stir-fry for dinner washed down with some Buzet red wine we’d just bought.

Monday 11th August 2008

We were woken by the crash bangs of a loud thunderstorm around eight. It poured with rain so we stayed in bed and dozed. Did a few odd jobs. Mike had another look at the Handy Mains he’d replaced components in a few days earlier that was only giving 180v instead of 240v. He decided he wasn’t really in the right mood and put it away. He dismantled his prototype UPS (un-interruptible power supply) and stored the parts (he’d since built two using the casings of a couple of redundant phone chargers).

Sunday 10th August 2008

Still cooler overnight under the acacia! Sunny and hot all day again. Loads of passing traffic, boats in both directions. Mike checked the batteries while I made lunch. The voltage was running low so Mike ran the engine to charge the batteries up.  I woke at 3.30 a.m. - I’d got a bug crawling on my back! I switched the light on to find I’d squished a poor little bush cricket. 

Saturday 9th August 2008 Sauveterre-St-Denis bridge

Much cooler overnight, a very warm sunny day but the cool breeze through the boat and being under the shade from the tree half the day kept the boat cooler. We had a lazy morning. I did some more census searches on Ancestry taking advantage of having the improved 3G service giving faster downloads. Mike did a service on the loo pump and changed its two valves for new ones. He put the front body half back on upside down and only noticed after he’d finished screwing it back in place! It all had to come off again. (It’s my age. Ed). We watched the news, the Russians had sent tanks into Georgia on the first day of the Chinese Olympic Games.

Friday 8th August 2008 Valence d’Agen to Sauveterre-St-Denis bridge

Cooler, sunny with white fluffy clouds. Mike was up first at nine and went to get bread, La Poste for cash, Casino for petrol and then Tourist Info Office to pay for three weeks mooring at 15€ per week. Set off at 11.05 a.m. The lady off little Luxe Bon Aventure came and say goodbye; she said everyone was going downhill; then Shebah-Mike came out of his cabin to say au’voir. A British owned ex-hireboat had just set off also heading downhill as we were untying. There were four boats tied up at Golfech, including Linde, who was there for the summer (because it’s free!). The first lock, 31 Lamagistère, was empty, so we had to wait for it to refill after we’d turned the pole. The lock was automatic, the house lived in but was shuttered (probably on holiday). We descended ropeless as usual. 

I cleaned out the starboard side handrails which were stuffed full of chaff after the hurricane on Tuesday night, then I made some sandwiches for lunch which we ate on the 6.6 km pound down to 32 Noble. A big blue Moissac hire boat was coming uphill in the lock when we arrived. Again we dropped down ropeless. We were going to tie up at what we thought was a mooring at St Jean-de-Thurac (we’d driven past it loads of times), which turned out to be a parking area for camper vans with no provision for mooring as the bank edge was shallow at least a metre from the grass. We attempted to moor above the next lock but again it was too shallow by the landing for the lock, as was the piling on the other bank. We dropped down St Christophe. The lock house was closed and uninhabited. Just beyond the bridge with the road that lead over the "clackety" river bridge (wooden decking!) to Sauveterre-St-Denis there was a piled edge. 

It looked deeper as there was no weed growth, so we managed to get right next to the bank with the fore end sheltered from the sun under an overhanging acacia tree. It was 2.20 p.m. The wind was blowing straight down the canal and through our front doors. I found some right angled hooks and screwed them into the panel under the front door to anchor the bottom edge of the door curtain and stop it flying up in the breeze as there were lots of house flies about. Not long after we’d tied up there was a splashing and commotion outside so Mike went out to have a look. A big black dog had gone in the canal after a stick and couldn’t get out as the piling was too high. Neither Mike nor his owner could lift him so they had to encourage  him to swim back towards the bridge. A lovely old black dog, he was even bigger than our Rowsy was and just as daft! I cooked some pork chops for dinner. Nice to have a cooked meal after all the recent salad and it was cooler so the heat from cooking didn’t turn us into dripping zombies. 

Thursday 7th August 2008

18.5°C Grey skies, occasional sunny spells, cooler after the overnight storm. Mike said the show was on again tonight so we’d watch it and then set off next day. He started work on a Handy Mains inverter which needed a repair. We had words when he brought a filthy old towel which stank of diesel to put on the table as he would be doing some soldering. (It wasn’t that dirty and it had only a slight smell of eau d’diesel. It does live in the engine room after all.Ed). I found him an old clean skirt out of the rag bag to use instead. We watched the French weather forecast (no rain). We sat out on the back deck at 9.45 p.m. to watch the show “Au Fil de l’Eau – Une Histoire”. The singer was warming up the audience, the juggler was juggling and the place was packed. The whole show went off without a hitch as it was only slightly windy. A hundred years of history told by a storyteller and acted out by a cast of 350 volunteers. It was magical and we had seats in the wings. Though the view from the stalls would have been better! We worked out later that there were almost 2,500 seats and at 18€ per seat each performance was netting over 44,500€! There were six performances. Not a bad money spinner for the town! It finished at midnight and we retreated indoors. 

Wednesday 6th August 2008

17.5°C Min Overnight! Hotter and hotter. Sunny all day. I was on my third cup of coffee when Mike got up. . Too hot to do anything but vegetate in front of a fan with the blinds shut. Around five we livened up a bit. Mike gave up on his Rubik’s cube and tidied up the engine room (we’d shoved everything down there when we dashed inside the night before) then helped me do the chores. Much later a storm started, flashes of lightening and great peals of thunder then rain. Cooled the outside temperature down, but didn’t do much for the temperature in the cabin.

Tuesday 5th August 2008

Wooden scenery for the show.

Hot and sticky. Sunny all day. The hire boats were jostling for places again. I made a sign to hang on the rope between us and the hulk, which went< 2.20M> Max! to try and keep the hire boats from insisting on cramming between us and the hulk. We went shopping at Carrefour Agen Sud. Back for lunchtime. I stowed the stuff while Mike went outside to change the coax connectors on the satellite cable as he’d bought some new ones. The old ones weren’t as corroded and rusty as he thought they would be, but he changed them anyway. Later we found our folding Captain's seats out of the engine room and sat out on the back of the boat to watch the performance. It was still light when sat out; the bank of seats looked pretty full and the lights were lighting up the front of the quay where a juggler was performing (we could see the Indian clubs but not him!) and a girl was singing. 

More of the scenery during daylight.

When it dropped dark at ten the show started; smoke poured across the canal and a green laser played through the fog; the recorded commentary started (and a brief hello in English) then a ferryman illuminated with ultra violet light paddled across from the grassy bank to the towpath side by the bridge and his three passengers took lamps and got off on the bank; blue lights back of the trees lit up and sent the foreground into darkness. As the passengers alighted the blue lights went off and the foreground lights all along the towpath came on in orange revealing a sepia coloured still life tableau of life in a French village of one hundred years ago and for a brief moment the scores of people in period costume were stock still. Then the spotlights came on and Snap! everyone went about their business: a priest lead a funeral procession with a monk hauling a cart and coffin to the cemetery far left of the scene (opposite us), the harvesters were running a thresher, two old cars went through the village honking for kids and dogs to get out of the way followed by a horse and carriage. 

Scenery for "Au Fil de l'Eau" annual pageant at
Valence d'Agen

A cameo scene took place in the schoolroom far right where the teacher taught the children about the rivers of the region and a projection screen mid “stage” showed illustrations to aid his lesson for the audience, then a bullock hauled a barge full of wine barrels from right to left (unfortunately for some reason the barge wasn’t lit up) then a steam barge started from the right. The sky due south had been lit up by lightening flashes ever since we first sat out and it had started to rain just as the lights came up, but suddenly the wind picked up blowing with hurricane force from the south hurling the scenery about and the projection screen flew out horizontal! Opposite us the area around the ancient threshing machine had loads of straw which the wind was now hurling at us with great force along with leaves and dirt! We could see all along the stage the wind was tearing through the scenery and blowing dirt and debris all over the audience in the stalls. We retreated inside. The show was called off and the audience left. Mike said he saw the cars leaving the car park at the back of the “stage” driving over things going crunch on the towpath which he thought were tree branches until the occupants of one car stopped to pick up the scenery panels of the churchyard wall! That was a huge disappointment. It was 10.30 p.m. so there had been another hour and a half of the show we didn't see!

Monday 4th August 2008

Hot and sticky. Sunny afternoon, dull morning. Back to salad as it was much too hot to cook. Hire boats galore. A huge (4m wide) Connoiseur tried to get into the gap - the one to the right of our bows - and was too wide to get in so it backed out and then moored bows to the corner by the French boats with its stern next to peniche Henri; it looked like there were at least three French families on board. The Son et Lumiere certainly pulls in the tourists!

Sunday 3rd August 2008

Grey morning, cooler; sun out later. Mike was up first at nine and went to get some bread. He tidied up all the tools, etc, off the front deck but still couldn’t find a 10mm spanner that had been on the back seat of the car. He fixed a crack in a big yellow funnel by melting the plastic edges together with his soldering iron and managed to burn his leg on it (matching the burn on his ankle from welding when we were on the dry dock). The couple on the boat next door went out at 11.30 a.m. and Mike thought they’d gone to eat in town and therefore would want to move their boat while the Grand Prix was on. Luckily, he was wrong they’d been out to buy edible stuff. Mike had to go and move our long green rope from behind the Canalous hire boat so that they could get out – at least now he could watch the Hungarian Grand Prix in peace. When the racing finished we went out for a ride in the car. Headed out on the scenic route (the weekly route to Carrefour in Agen Sud) but went off to Lectoure, into Condom and Eauze towards Pau, came back towards Auch on the N124, then north a short way and east cross country back to Lectoure and home. Mike added more to his car repairs list.

Saturday 2nd August 2008

Cooler overnight, cloudy day with spells of sunshine. Had a lazy morning. Mike watched the F1 qualis from Hungary. A hire boat arrived and its French speaking crew insisted on mooring between our pontoon and the hulk. Mike told them it wouldn’t fit, they were too wide! They didn’t. They moored on to the hulk with their bows just off the pontoon. They said they were only staying overnight and the rest of the mooring was full. (What they really meant was they wanted to see the show later!) The spectacle “Au Fil de l’Eau” started around 10.30 p.m. Mike called me outside to look, but I missed the opening sequence of ultraviolet light and lasers. The couple on the hire boat were sitting out watching and those on the small boat moored the other side of the hulk, as were all the people on the French boats in the corner. Probably all the visiting boat crews were either watching from their boats or had paid 18€ each for tickets to watch from the stalls. 

Friday 1st August 2008 Valence d’Agen. Canal Latéral à Garonne.

Very hot and sticky 20.4°C overnight. Raining first thing, grey and cooler. Mike ordered some Eva Cassidy CDs from Amazon, four out of the six CDs she recorded, Eva by Heart, Imagine, Live at Blues Alley and American Tune, as they were all selling at around £5 each. A new one was due out on the 25th. Apparently she did loads of demos and studio recordings which are a source for new albums. Then he 'phoned his Mum to tell her to expect another package. I cooked a garlic pork stir-fry for dinner as it was a little cooler than of late (it seemed like the first hot meal we’d had instead of salad for weeks!)

Thursday 31st July 2008 Valence d'Agen

Very hot and sunny. I got on with the chores and did some washing. The meteo said today would be even hotter. Just after lunch the roof temperature (in the shade under the gang planks) was over 39°C. Mike suggested we went out in the car again to cool down. We went over the river bridge and turned left and went through Beaumont-en-Lomagne, then headed back through Castelsarrasin and Moissac. The sky held the last few streaks of daylight as we arrived back at Valence. The technical dept was still fiddling with lights, etc. Kept a ventilator fan on all night. The temperature outside didn’t drop below 20°C overnight.

Wednesday 30th July 2008 Valence d'Agen - finally, and at long last, fixed the car!

Hot and sticky. We waited for Citroën to ring to say the parts had arrived. The young lad rang, neither of us could follow his French, but it appeared the new silent blocks had arrived. We went to fetch them. 166€! Even worse! Filled the ZX’s tank at Géant, at least that had gone down a bit more, 1,34.9€/litre (1,38.9€ last time) back home for midday. After lunch Mike set to work on the car and replaced the silent blocks. He finished just after 4.00 p.m. knackered due to having to work in direct full sunshine. He had a wash and went for a lie down. Later we went out for a ride in the car to test it. Hooray! No more banging from the rear as we went over bumps! Took the road to Flamerens, through the lovely low hills to Sisterns and on into Caudecost, then back through Sauveterre and St Sixte (the end of the scenic route to Agen) to the boat in the dusk. Too hot and tired so we watched a film we recorded earlier, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, a modernised dramatisation of H.G.Welles’ story. Hotter and hotter. The cabin didn’t seem to cool down much after dark, even with leaving the side doors wide open (and mossie net in place). I lay in bed and sweat so much my head felt like I’d dunked it in a bowl of warm water! I migrated to the side bunk, switched the fan on for half an hour until I’d cooled down, and even then spent a restless night. Mike got up several times, he said he could hear the workmen talking who were setting up the sound and lighting system for the pageant, plus they had several large spotlights on, which he could see even though we’d got the reflective heat shields in both bedroom windows. 

Tuesday 29th July 2008 Valence d'Agen

Cloudy first thing, sunny and getting hotter again later. We went to Agen Sud to get the new silent blocks, they hadn’t arrived, Mike asked them to 'phone us. They told him they would be 80€ each! Ouch, ouch, ouch!!! 160€ = £128 for two bits of rubber in steel shells. Waah! We went to get a few groceries from Carrefour, salad etc. Back for lunchtime. Loads of hire boats had filled the moorings. Sent Peter a text to tell him Shebah-Mike’s suggestion for feeding the pups, baby doll bottles from a toyshop! Simple but effective. (He used to own a farm and horse riding school in the UK northeast).

Monday 28th July 2008 Valence d'Agen

Still very hot, wind picked up late afternoon and it clouded over making it much cooler. Mike 'phoned Peter (on my suggestion that he knows lots about mending old motors and might come up with something Mike had missed) His American bulldog, Mini, had had her pups! Thirteen were born in total (the world record is twenty), five last Thursday and they thought she’d finished giving birth until one was born dead on Saturday, followed by six more live ones! One was sickly and died soon after, but the remaining eleven were doing well. Peter said that Mini looked like a ghost of her former self though, all skin and bones and was very clumsy getting into the box he’d made to contain the pups, she treads on them and lies on them making them squawk! He said he was having to bottle feed some of them, the biggest, so Mini could feed the smaller ones herself, but the baby bottle teats were too big for the bulldog short snouts, so he was going to try getting teats for premature baby bottles. His answer to the knocking noise on the ZX was immediately shock absorbers. He suggested taking them off and having a ride round to see if that stopped the noise, Mike said he would try it. He took the wheel off again and jacked up the hub to take the weight, then made the noise reoccur by inserting a long screwdriver between the metal body of the silent block and the sub-frame (effectively levering the silent block the wrong way) and recreating the noise by loading the wheel and taking the load off again with the lever. A new silent block, front one driver’s side, was required. Roy’s camper van was missing - Shebah-Mike said he’d gone to Narbonne. I made some lunch while Mike put the car back together again. We went into Agen Sud (even the air was hot with the wind through the open windows) via the scenic route. There were two types of silent block, did we know which one? Mike said their mechanics would know which one, so they said they would put the ZX on their “pont” (lift) and have a look. In the meantime one of the mechanics said the two types were just different manufacturers, either would be OK. They had none in stock so they would arrive overnight, collect them next morning. Back home via the scenic route. “My” house near St Nicholas-de-la-Balerme had been sold; the for sale notice had disappeared ages ago. The boat cabin felt humid and sticky after being closed up for a couple of hours even through the temperature was still 38°C, the same as before we went out. Stripped off and sprawled in front of a fan. Bill sent two texts to ask if we had Garry the lorry’s phone number. Nope, never dealt with him, we went with someone else’s transport. Mike tried ringing Bill, but got his answering machine – Bill was trying to ring us. He said forget the texts, the numbers he had were working OK. He had arrived at Agde and was moored by the place with free electric (which was still full of boats). He’d seen Paul at Bézièrs, who had been expecting his next load of visiting friends until he had a last minute 'phone call to say they were at the UK airport about to board the plane and someone in the group had an expired passport, so they weren’t coming. Luckily he hadn’t been out to do a big shop in preparation for their arrival. 

Sunday 27th July 2008 Valence d'Agen

Hot and sunny. Mike organized the ladders and plank under the car to lift the fuel tank back into position, I helped by lifting it while he replaced the bolts. He fitted the brake cables and I assisted with the adjusting, listening for the clicking to finish.  I made lunch while he finished putting the car back together. After lunch we went out in the car to test it. We hadn’t gone far before we decided that the banging was still there. We drove north to Cahors, paused to drink a cold coke under the trees by the river Lot and watched a trip boat go by, then carried on towards Figeac with the intention of going to Aurillac, but the traffic along the Lot valley was heavy so we turned left into the hills on narrow roads at Lamagdeleine, up to Mels, Valroufié and Francoulès; then headed west through St Denis-Catus, Catus and St Mèdard along the valley of le Vert stream. Then up and over the hill to Luzech, where we crossed the Lot and headed southwest down the valley of the Seoule to Castelsagrat and back into Valence. Sweltering hot and very sticky - had a ventilator fan blowing into the bedroom all night.  

Saturday 26th July 2008 Valence d'Agen - still working on the car

Cloudy mainly, a few showers of very light rain and long spells of sunshine. Mike started work again on the car, taking the fuel tank off. After lunch I gave Mike a hand to finish emptying diesel out of the tank and sticking bits of one of my green kitchen mats on the areas of the tank that were showing signs of vibration damage. More hire boats filled the moorings up again. The town was having a night market from 5.00 p.m. until 2.00 a.m. with live music (and British beer according to Roy) as part of the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the creation of the department Tarn et Garonne. Mike decided that the one bolt that just turned and wouldn’t tighten on the fuel tank fixings would have to be replaced by a special fixing. Roy hadn’t got one so he said to borrow his car to go to the DIY, which Mike did. He brought several special bolts from Weldom. He drilled a hole in the car’s bodywork to accept an expanding cavity wall fitting. 

Friday 25th July 2008 Valence d'Agen

Sunny morning, clouding over later. Hot, cooling a bit with cloud cover. We went shopping. First to La Poste to post letters to the UK, then to Agen Sud via the main road. Bought the groceries and called at Géant their diesel had gone down another cent down to 1,36.9€/litre. Back home via the scenic route. After lunch Mike went outside to start on the car, emptying the fuel tank ready to start next day on changing the brake cables and finding the noise. 

Thursday 24th July 2008 Valence d'Agen - still fixing the car

  

Sunny morning, clouding later, a bit cooler. We went to Agen Sud to Feu Vert, as we had booked an appointment for them to investigate the knocking noise coming from the rear driver side of the ZX. Mike had suggested that perhaps the shock absorbers were the wrong ones and were too short which had been rejected by the garage boss. We waited in a queue at the desk, then another guy served us and said he would find someone to have a look at it, so we went and sat in the car to wait for a mechanic to become available. One passed in our direction at 11.45 a.m. (they closed for lunch for two hours at twelve) on his way to a car which had arrived well after us. Mike went back in the shop to have further words with the chef. Yes, some one would come and have a look at it. Eventually the guy who had originally booked the appointment, the garage chef, came and looked at it himself. Up on the hoist, he tried to waggle the wheels, no play in them; then he got a short pinch bar and tried levering the arms, again no play. He banged on the tyres. Strangely the noise appeared booming on the left no matter which tyre was banged! He and Mike carried on banging the tyres and trying to identify the source of the noise. The fuel tank! Unbelievably it was the left side of the tank vibrating. We thanked him and he seemed pleased and bemused that he’d found the source of the knocking noise. Mike thought it may have been caused by the garage in Valence when they did the welding, taking the tank off and not refitting it properly. He said he would call in at Citroën next day and ask if there should be any packing material between the tank and the bodywork. We gave up on the idea of going shopping and went home. Mike took more photos of the scenery and the seating or the pageant. He got waylaid on the way back, chatting with Shebah-Mike and Roy.

Wednesday 23rd July 2008 Valence d'Agen - day out in the car

Puy-l’Evêque>

Hot and sunny all day. We decided to go out in the car. Slung some sandwiches in the cool bag with some cans of pop and some frozen ice packs. Mike sorted out the maps, GPS, camera, etc and we went via Agen Sud to call in at Citroën as Mike had forgotten to get a single small securing clip to hold the brake cables underneath the fuel tank, which cost an exorbitant 1€. Called in Géant to refill the car’s tank at 1,38.9€ (£1.10) a litre and we set off through Bon Encontre to find the D215, heading north-east through Sauvetat and Cauzac; north of Beauville (moto-cross on on Saturday) carrying on up the valley of the Petit Séoune, a tributary of the Garonne, on the D41 to the head at Couloussac, then over the hill and down into the next valley. We stopped on the shady, little used road for our picnic lunch before descending to the Boudouyssou, a tributary of the Lot, and up the hill through Saux and found the D44 (saw a road accident with pompiers in attendance where a motorcyclist had been hit by a car) through Floressas, a lovely little fortress of a village on top of a hill with seven roads radiating from it, to Puy-l’Evêque, a large town on the Lot. We paused while Mike took a photo of the hillside town, then crossed the river and carried on on the D44 to Frayssinet, another village on a multiple crossroad, taking the D673 through Montcléra, Cazals and Salviac, then followed the river Céou, a tributary of the Dordogne, for a short distance, passing a tumble down château on a hill, with big holes in its slate roof, called the Château de Repaire! Over the hills through St Martial-de-Nabirat to Domme, where we crossed the Dordogne. The river at this time of year is shallow and slow flowing, so the tourists were out in their hundreds along the bank, kids in hired canoes and loads of cars generally slowing down the passing traffic. We followed the river road heading upstream to Vitrac then up the valley of the Vitrac, towards Sarlat-La-Caneda, into more slow moving holiday traffic (Germans, Brits, Dutch and Belgians mostly) so we took a left up a very steep hill road with hairpins to the ridge road and turned left, heading back towards the river to la Roque-Gageac. Turned right heading downstream alongside the Dordogne, still filled with paddlers and canoes, past loads of souvenir shops in la Roque and turned left across the river to Castenaud-la-Chapelle. 

I took a photo of the impressive fortress on a crag. South, running up the valley of the Céou a short distance, then turned right on the D50 running west a short distance before turning south through La Chapelle Péchaud to St Laurent-la-Vallée then took the D60 through the lovely little village of Prats-du-Périgord (saw a red deer nonchalantly grazing not far from the road so we stopped and I took several photos of it) and into Villefranche-du-Périgord. Took the tiny forest roads past Loubéjac to Montcabrier then had to divert towards Puy-l’Evêque as the D58, the road  due south to Duravel was blocked for road resurfacing. No diversion signs so we followed a Dutch car and ended up having to back track as the whole of the D58 was closed. Ran up to Duravel along the river road and turned left across the Lot to Vire-sur-Lot. We thought there seemed to be a concentration of Dutch cars then we saw a campsite whose car park seemed to be exclusively Dutch. A Dutchman must own the campsite for there to have been so many Dutch cars. We carried on through Lacapelle-Cabanac to Mauroux, then Tournon-d’Agenais then south on the D656 southwest towards Agen then south through Lacour (another hilltop gem) to Bourg-le-Visa, crossing two more valleys then down the Barguelonne valley back into Valence. Back at six. The cabin was hot having been shut up all day, but I’d left all the blinds closed so it wasn’t too bad. 

Tuesday 22nd July 2008 Valence d'Agen - working on the car

Hot and sunny. We went into Agen Sud via the scenic route. First stop Citroën to take back the gaiter that didn’t fit for a refund and pick up the two new brake cables. The return was 50€ and the two cables 36€, so he had a refund in cash! Next we went to Feu Vert. Yes, the rear shock absorbers they fitted were correct (not too short as Mike suspected) and the guy said he would book it in for them to hoist the car up and have a look and see if they could find what was making the knocking noises. Busy all day, so he booked it for Thursday at 11.00 a.m. We went in Carrefour for some CD labels, got none, went in Casto and got another can of expanding foam to finish filling the green sausage fender that burst when we came in to moor on the pontoon (Roy’s fault – he pulled on the rope). We went in Géant and bought two packs of CD labels, plus Mike had new Senheiser earphones for his mp3 player for 10€. Home via the scenic route. I made some lunch while Mike went to Casino to fill a container of diesel for the boat. The price at Géant, Agen Sud had dropped to 1,38.9€ per litre, but Casino was still on old stock at 1,41.9€. After lunch Mike examined the fender and found it was more than three quarters full of foam, so we didn’t really need the other can! Lots of people about as it was Tuesday, the day for hire boats to moor at Valence.

Monday 21st July 2008 Valence d'Agen - working on the car.

Sunny, blue skies a.m. with a few clouds in the afternoon. Had a lazy morning. Mike fetched some bread from the boulangerie, then set to work on the car replacing the thermostat. Shebah-Mike said he’d had trouble copying some of his oldest Betamax tapes (they were from the fifties!), they kept stopping and he had to restart them. 

Sunday 20th July 2008 Valence d'Agen - working on the car.

Sunny first thing, grey clouds and a few spots of rain later. I put the laptop on and had a long session on the Internet (without downloading vast amounts as it was so slow on 2G). After lunch Mike fixed the rear door fastener on the car with a part he made himself to replace he one he broke the day before. After lunch I carried on researching on Ancestry, slowly.

Saturday 19th July 2008 Valence d'Agen - working on the car.

Hot and sunny. We went to Intermarché for a few veg as Carrefour’s had seemed expensive. Theirs were just as expensive and didn’t look as good quality, oh well you win some and loose some! When we got back Mike took the back wheels off the car to try and find the cause of the banging noises from the rear end when under braking and going over bumps, without success. He replaced the rear door lock button and broke a plastic component inside the door; took the panel off and locked it permanently until he could get a replacement part from a scrap yard. After lunch Mike watched the German Grand Prix qualis 

Friday 18th July 2008 Valence d'Agen - working on the car

Hot and sunny. Mike set to work straight away on the car. I got on with the chores, assisting Mike with the car repairs where necessary. He changed the damaged rubber gaiter (which entailed removing the drive shaft) replaced it and then paused for lunch. After lunch I gave him a hand to re-weld the  brackets that hold the brake pipes and sensor cables for the brake pads (also damaged by the Feu Vert mechanics, but try proving it). Put stuff away and reconnected the electricity supply to the boat. Getting hotter. Had a text from Bill who was awaiting post at Le Somail; he said mooring ropes had been cut again a few days earlier at Capestang. Mike used up the remaining daytime allowance on emails and downloading upgrades for his security systems. I did some work on Ancestry to use up some of the remaining monthly-allocated Megabytes.

Thursday 17th July 2008 Valence d’Agen C de Garonne

< Wooden scenery for pageant.
Hot and sunny morning, clouding over by mid-afternoon so cooler later. We had made an early lunch before going shopping. Zambezi arrived, winded, and moored on the quay (Michel’s péniche Henri had been moved off the quay ready for the pageant - he was now at the upstream end of the moorings, and on the bottom mostly) Shebah-Mike and Roy said Zambezi was owned by the council (department probably) and was taking kids on holiday on the canal. They said that Michel had had a big row with the French residents when he plugged Henri into the electricity supply next to them and kept cutting their power off. Mike discovered another problem with our car as we were setting off. The front left hand gaiter had a split in it and was leaking grease. Feu Vert did it again! Their grease monkeys must have caught it when they changed the shock absorbers. He cleaned up most of the mess then we went shopping in Agen Sud. The port was gradually being cut off from the “show” area, where they had erected a very large sloping bank of seating with white board panels all around it, the gate across the road through the port had a wheel on the end of it so it could be opened and closed. We went via the scenic route into Agen Sud. First to Carrefour for groceries. The place was quiet, considering they still had a 50% sale on, but most of the customers seemed to be fairly affluent looking Dutch tourists. 
Next stop Casto. Bought some tubing and a can of aerosol foam to fill the deflated fender. Then Citroën. Mike went in and bought two gaiters, two different models as he wasn’t sure which ours was - bring the other one back for a refund, the guy said. When he paid for them he noticed that one was 29€ while the other was 49€, he asked why the difference in price as they were almost identical and was told it was the price from the manufacturers. He ordered a new hand-brake cable. Back via the scenic route. Shebah-Mike said the electric had been off while we were out but they’d just got it back on; he said it was probably the air-conditioning on péniches Zambezi and Henri. I put the groceries away and Mike went up into town to get the two new drive belts from the auto spares shop which he had ordered the day before. They cost 17€ each! Ouch!

Wednesday 16th July 2008 Moissac to Valence d’Agen C.de Garonne

Hot and sunny; lovely cool and breezy start to the morning. Set off around nine to get to the first lock just after opening time. To our great surprise the hire boat we’d shared locks with the day before was moored only 500m  further down the cut! Only one crew member was on deck so Mike said Güten Tag! to the large elderly bearded bloke (who kept threading half a mile of rope round the vertical sliders from their stern the day before) – he said “Good Morning” in reply! We carried on down to lock 26, Espagnette, passing a pilgrim - shell on his knapsack, rosary in hand, striding down the towpath following the Grand Randonée which is also the route to St Jacques de Compostella in northern Spain. No one around at the lock house, and no sign of the hire boat, so I pressed the green button and we dropped down ropeless, comme normal. We overtook the pilgrim again on the 3.8 kms pound. His route crossed over the canal and continued up the hill to Boudou (a village with a superb vantage point to look out over the junction of the Tarn and Garonne). We ran down to Petit Bézy, lock 27, with glimpses of the Tarn through the trees to our left and dropped down the lock as before. The next pound was a long one, 6 kms, past Malause where Steve and Kit’s Dutch Barge Vrouwe Jeanette was still moored, plus two more replica Dutch barges and a British cruiser. An old Bermuda cruiser went past heading uphill. We went down lock 28, Braguel, leaving the bottom at 11.00 a.m. A short pound of 1.5 kms down to the next lock, Pommevic 29. A cruiser we’d just passed started untying. A Locaboat was coming up in the lock so we had to wait and it took them ages to get through the lock, over twenty minutes. A woman on board the hire boat was taking off her white gloves as they passed by. The cruiser made no signs of following us into the lock, so I pressed the green button and we carried on down. They followed down to the turn pole as we left the lock. 1.9 kms down to Valence lock 30. A private cruiser was coming up in the lock so we waited, stooging around above the lock. Mike spotted there was a young girl in the lock office alongside the lock house, she came out as I pressed the button and scowled as she went across the lock gates to the VNF yard on the other side. The scowl may have been because perhaps I did her job, pressing the button, or not having two ropes on (I dropped the centre rope round a bollard) or possibly the fact that there was a cruiser following us - she wasn’t to know that they had declined to lock with us. At least the VNF staff couldn’t insist that we locked together due to water shortages, water had been pouring over lock gates and weirs all the way down the canal as usual as it’s fed by the Garonne in Toulouse. We carried on into Valence and tied in the space where Rosy had been moore all winter. Mike missed the space first, the flow and flush from the lock carried him slightly too far and he had to run back a bit and turn in from down hill to get into the gap. Roy (the Canadian-Dutchman half of the Odd Couple) came over to help tie up, except he grabbed the bow rope and pulled on it which squashed and burst a nearly new side fender. It was midday so Mike hopped off and went to get some bread for lunch before the boulangerie closed while I put ropes on where I wanted - not where Roy had put them! When Mike returned he decided that mooring next to a rotting hulk was not such a good idea and we moved back to the space next to it, where we’d been moored all winter. Tied the bows tight and then slung our long green rope over the top of the hulk and a British guy on an ex-Connoisseur moored in the next bay gave us a hand to get the rope around the stern of the hulk and I tied it on the bar at the end of the next finger pontoon between his boat and the hulk. I made some sandwiches for lunch while Mike changed the plug on the end of the electricity cable and plugged in. We put the satellite dish up - it refused to work, I tried turning it but also got no signal; then Mike remembered he’d altered the elevation the night before, he altered it back and then it worked OK. He went up into town again to order two new alternator drive belts from the auto shop, (they would be there the following day). Work was going on apace by Valence council workers erecting the stage props on the far bank of the canal and the seating on our side. It was hot; we both had a siesta.

Tuesday 15th July 2008 Lacourt-St-Pierre to Moissac Canal de Garonne.

 Sunny and hot again; nice cool breezy start to the day. We set off at 9.30 a.m. winded and ran back down the arm towards Montech. The campsite by the junction was almost empty, just a few campervans and tents. Turned right and ran into Montech lock 11, which was full with the gates open. We’d only been there a couple of minutes when a guy on a moped arrived with a big box under his arm - surveys - he gave us one to fill in and hand back to the VNF, or post back to Toulouse. He emptied the lock and, as was becoming normal on keeper operated locks here, we sat for five minutes with the gates “cracked” before he pressed the button to open them. On down the short pound to lock 12 Peyrets, filling in the questionnaire. The man on a moped worked the lock for us. A very young lady worked Pellaborle 13 and rode down to 14 Escudiès on her bike. The old chap came down on his moped to help as the gate wasn’t shutting properly and she kept opening and shutting it. He went on down to the bottom lock and back while we were dropping down Escudiès. Into the last lock, 15, Pommiès, and another young girl worked the lock for us. We left the bottom at 11.05 a.m. the five locks having taken just an hour. 2.7 kms to Escatalens 16, the first of three automated locks. Mike had noticed first thing that the alternator drive belt was falling to bits, several of the “teeth” had fallen off, so he had to change it. We moored above lock 16 while he did it, meanwhile I cleaned the ventilator fans and cooked some bacon for lunch. Péniche hotel boat Zambezi went past heading downhill and a little later a British (and Dutch) flagged cruiser also went downhill. We let them clear the lock then followed on down Escatalens at 12.50 p.m. The cruiser had moored just below the lock and a hire boat (a Nautic from Agde) was moored a further 200m down the canal, but pointing uphill. We carried on down to lock 17, St Martin, then 3.4 kms to lock 18, Prades. A Locaboat came up, we went down and into Castelsarrasin. A large cruiser was being hoisted by his bows by the crane at the boatyard. Zambezi was moored alongside several cruisers before the port, which was half empty. A large Connoisseur hire boat from Castelmoron on the Lot, flying an Austrian flag, appeared from nowhere and went into lock 19, Castelsarrasin, and we followed it. A young man pressed the buttons to work the lock. The lad cycled down to lock 20 St Jean-des-Vignes to work it for us. Lock 21 Verriès was full with gates open, the keeper returned on his bike as we arrived - an older guy in his 20s - he had to get the hire boat to move further down the lock chamber so we could get in (and miss the cill when he emptied the lock). They didn’t seem to be very keen on going further forward, but there was plenty of space in front of them and another bollard for their bow rope. A short pound to lock 22 Artel and the same keeper cycled down to work the lock for us. The bollards were better spaced again so we didn’t have to move the hire boat. 2.4 kms down into Moissac. We crossed the aqueduct over the Tarn and into lock 23 Cacor. Another very young lady worked the lock and kept opening and shutting the gates and trying to force the gates together before opening the bottom end paddles - Mike told her the water would fully close them! We have seen people in Britain crossing back and forth across the lock several times in order to try to get both gates fully closed. As the one gate shuts it opens the other a little so over to the other side to close the one that’s just opened and so on! The girl cycled down to lock 24 Gregonne and we followed the hire boat into the lock. The last of the manned locks was 25 Moissac. Another old chap was on the lock side with another box full of survey forms; thanks, but we had already got one from Montech! Another little girl worked the lock. A hire boat was waiting below to go up the lock so we had to wait until she’d locked him uphill before she cycled through the town to open the swing bridge for us. We waited in the shade under the main road bridge, the Austrians sat in the full sun between the baking hot high brick walls that enclose the canal through Moissac. We were surprised that they hadn’t tied up in the port de plaisance. The mooring I said I had seen alongside the road was just beyond a cement works next to the road. We stopped at 5.00 p.m. and the hire boat carried on. Perhaps they were carrying on to Valence, we thought. There were three blokes on the seats at the top of the bank by the road, but they looked harmless enough and there were no bottles of booze in sight. It was deep enough, we only had to knock a peg in for the bows as there was a bollard for the stern and then cut down some long strands of briar. The three men who had been sitting on the benches under the trees at the top of the bank went away around 6.30 p.m.

Monday 14th July 2008 Lacourt-St-Pierre Bastille Day

Sunny and hot. The three French cruisers went off down to Montauban, and there was us thinking the canals were all closed today! Glad they’d gone as I wanted to do some more washing and wouldn’t risk overloading the electricity circuits while they were there. Mike loaded the moped back in the car and took it to Valence. He came back twenty minutes later as he’d picked up a loaf in Moissac rather than take it to Valence and have to come back on the moped with it. I got on with the chores. The replacement sockets for his toolkit had arrived, sent by Paul’s friend Ron, to replace the ones broken when Mike helped Paul to repair his engine. Ron’d forgotten to add France to the end of the address so the parcel had been via Lisbon (Portugal) after someone had written Spain on the packet! Mike had a cup of coffee with Sheba-Mike and a chat. His mate Roy had gone off on his travels again in his campervan. Sheba-Mike had been transferring his Betamax tapes on to DVD; the colour was deteriorating, but that was a problem with the age of the tapes not the machine. Valence’s pageant was due to start at the beginning of August, it would be very noisy for an hour and a half every night for a week he said! The mooring space we’d vacated at Valence was still free as it was too narrow for anything wider than a narrowboat. I’d just finished eating my lunch and was reading my book when he returned on the moped. Later, around 11.00 p.m. we could hear distant Bastille Day celebration fireworks from the direction of Montauban, but we couldn’t see them.

Sunday 13th July 2008 Lacourt-St-Pierre

Grey, but dry, a few sunny spells. We had a Sunday morning lie in. Mike said there was a large crowd of people on the car park, later there were lots of cars parked there. Mike’s Dad rang and while we were talking several boats arrived and filled the moorings, plus a couple of hire boats moored beyond the bridge. Later the hire boats set off back to Montech, but the three French private cruisers remained on the quay. 

Saturday 12th July 2008 Lacourt-St-Pierre

Dismal day, cooler with grey clouds and lots of light showers. Mike went to move the car. As we were getting ready to move the moped off the roof the skipper off the Dutch Barge strolled over for a chat. His wife had had a nasty tumble on their boat a couple of days before and had the most amazing psychedelic blue, yellow and purple bruises down both legs and one arm, plus a big scab on one knee. They were due back home on Saturday. They winded and went off back towards Montech as we lifted the moped off the roof. Mike set off at 10.30 a.m. to get the car. He said he didn’t need a jacket so he just wore his fleece. It was still wet when he returned with the car at 2.00 p.m. (It started raining minutes after he left) After lunch we went to the Intermarché in Montech in the car to get a few groceries to tide us over the long weekend (Bank Holiday on Monday – Bastille Day) No one came for the mooring fees again - that’s two nights. 

Friday 11th July 2008 St Jory to Lacourt-St-Pierre Canal de Garonne

Hot and sunny morning, breezy, clouding over mid morning. Sultry, we had a thunderstorm later. We set off at about the same time as Grand Duchy. They told us they were going to Toulouse to leave their boat there for a month to go back to the UK, then they were coming back to explore the Baïse. Might see them later. The cruiser had set off earlier, winded and was heading downhill, same way as us. We carried on downhill to lock 6 l’Hers, with an aqueduct over the river of the same name just above the lock. No signs of life at the lock, we were back to keeper operated electric (we thought that maybe there was one keeper for the two locks and he’d gone off to the second lock with the cruiser) so Mike gave a couple of hoots as we slung a rope round a bollard on the quay above the lock. A young man with a baby in arms came out and pressed the button to fill the lock and a young lady came out to take over and work the lock for us, so there was a resident keeper on duty. The controls for the lock were at the base of a 2.5m high panel which caused the young lady to have to squat to hold down the levers.  800m to the next lock N° 8, Castelnau. A very chatty young student lad pressed the buttons. As we left the lock a British replica Dutch barge arrived below the lock so when the keeper started closing the gates we all yelled “il y a un montant!” (one to come up!) He reopened the gates and they carried on in. Bill sent a text to ask for Paul’s ‘phone number and we asked where he was – Rosy was just approaching Carcassonne. It was 3.2 kms to lock 9, Emballens, also operated by a keeper. As this one was operated by an older bloke I asked why the locks were keeper operated. He said that quite simply the VNF ran out of money and never finished the project. It was 10.30 a.m. as we set off on the long pound, 18.5 kms to Lavache. At eleven we passed through Grisolles. A replica Dutch barge and a cruiser (both British) were moored there, surrounded by fishermen. No signs of life, they must have gone early to find the well-recommended restaurant. The crew of Grand Duchy said there was water at Grisolles, but we looked and couldn’t see a tap. A purple heron flew off in front, landed and flew off again to land again a few dozens of metres in front. The lock at Lavache was automatic, (we’d forgotten), so we went down it five minutes before the end of lunch break time. A VNF man came out of the house and asked if we were continuing down Montech. We told him we were going to Lacourt-St-Pierre for a few days. The moorings at Montech were more or less full; we’re too long for their end-on moorings anyway - the one end was for the trip boat (we’d just seen that above Lavache) and the other end was occupied by another British steel boat. The crew of the latter spoke to us from their aft deck as we went past. Turned right on to the Montauban arm and ran down the 4 kms to Lacourt. The mooring was empty so we had our choice of which end to moor so we tied up at the upstream end as before, connected the electricity and started some washing. I said it would be a good idea to switch off the hot water supply as it seemed to be using hot water to rinse the clothes too. Mike did. Then the machine didn’t want to work. He pulled the machine out from under the work top to check the water controlling solenoids, then he spotted that he’d reversed the pipes, connected the hot pipe to the cold input. Italian for cold is freddo and hot is calda! Rats! He’d done that during the winter at Valence, which didn’t matter as all the water was cold then. Swapped the pipes over and the washing continued working OK. At 4.45 p.m. the British Dutch Barge arrived and occupied the remaining length of quay. Mike went out to lend a hand with ropes as it was shallow (we were on the bottom) but the crew said they were OK. A distant thunderstorm took the last fifteen minutes of Corrie off so we watched the re-run on ITV2 later at 1.00 a.m.

Thursday 10th July 2008 Vic to St Jory C. du Midi

Hot and sunny. We took a trip to the Intermarché in Castanets to buy some bread and a new straw hat for Mike then back to the boat to get ready to move off. Just after 10 a.m. we pulled up stakes, I retied the blue cruiser and then walked down to the lock. As Mike backed out into the channel a Nichols hire boat came round the corner also heading downhill. An elderly French couple with a dog seemed a bit bemused to share the lock with a strange boat like ours. When the lock emptied we all pulled our ropes in and the cruiser came away from the wall, so Mike indicated for them to go first. It was 10.40 a.m. as we set off on the 1.7 kms pound to Castanets lock. The dredging tip was just below the lock; a pile of mud, tyres and old motorbikes marked the spot. When we got to the next lock the French lady off the hire boat came to catch a rope for us and apologised for not being “with it” in the previous lock as she had loosed her rope off too soon. I assured her it had been no problem. The café on the towpath side above the lock was already busy. Castanets lock was a deep one, 5m, and the usual residential keeper had to indicate to the hire crew to untie their boat before he drew the paddles. I told them to beware that it was 5m deep. The ropes that the hire company had issued with the boat were several metres too short for the depth of lock so the guy on the back had to loose his off before the chamber was completely empty. They were going to stop in Toulouse so we wished them a good holiday as they left the lock. The VNF tug with a full pan of dredgings was waiting below the lock to go up to the tip and an empty boat and tug was waiting to go the other way moored by the houseboat péniche. 12 kms to Bayard lock in Toulouse. The moored houseboats started just before Ramonville and continued all the way to the Toulouse periphérique (ring road). Beyond that it was cool and shady with a double line of plane trees, but noisy from two cycle paths, one on each bank, a road on one side and lots of planes flying overhead. We went past the University buildings and moored for lunch next to the redundant floating stop lock gates (now superceded by modern radial gates which protect the aqueduct over the motorway link road) just while we ate a sandwich for lunch. We arrived at the top of Bayard lock at 1.35 p.m. as their lunch break finished. We turned the pole before the bridge on the blind bend above the lock; I took the mast off, (the bridge was a low one) and when we got a red/green light we carried on through the bridge as there was a large group of very drunk clochards (tramps) sitting by the waiting area. We hovered by Violette and Occitania, the two restaurant boats above the lock. The last three locks on the canal du Midi are now remotely operated by a keeper in an office next to the last lock. Mike took the boat in and I put our centre rope on a vertical bar in the wall. Eventually the gates shut and after another wait the paddles opened, slowly; the boat descended, slowly. Then another wait for the gates to open. Wonderful bit of VNF technology, shame it had to have a human operator to interfere with it and slow it down. The other two locks were worked in just as inefficient manner. We wound through blocks of high rise flats with busy roads on each bank, noisy and smelly. Down Minimes, slowly, and down the short pound to the last lock, Béarnais. A young lady came out of the lock office and asked if we were OK with just the centre rope. We dropped down as before, slowly, and waited another five minutes after the bottom gates cracked open before whomever was pressing the buttons decided to open them. It was getting hotter and hotter. More new flats were being built and it was even noisier than before. At 2.45 p.m. we turned off the canal du Midi on to the canal de Garonne in the port d’Embouchure. There was a narrowboat moored beyond the resident péniche, too far away to see its name. We ran on past the long line of moored houseboats at the start of the canal and on down the straight section leading to the first lock, Lalande, past the floating footbridge and the guy who lives in boxes under the motorway bridge. Above the lock there was a group of kids learning to canoe. More kids were playing at jumping off the wooden landing for the lock - we kept well away from it and them. Turned the pole to activate the lock and hovered around while it filled. Another group of kids had set fire to the grass between the lock house and the railway track, they were trying to beat it out and one was trying to put it out with a couple of inches of water he had scraped from the edge of the canal bank in a bucket. A VNF man came out from the lock house to chat as we went through the lock, so we told him about the kids setting fire to the grass, but he didn’t seen at all perturbed by it (we would have called the fire brigade! The flames were slowly advancing towards the railway tracks). As we left the lock the gates started to close behind us until the VNF man, who had come down the steps to the tail end of the lock, put a hand over the sensor causing the lock to go “en panne” and two red lights came on. We wondered why he did that? Was he just testing the system? We had a glass of ice cold coke as we ran down to lock 2, Lacourtensourt. Turned the pole and the gates opened as the lock was already full. A cyclist stopped on the lock side for a quick drag on a fag! The lock house was inhabited and a 4x4 stood outside, but there was no one around. A short pound lead to Fenouillet lock 3. The lock was empty and started to fill after we turned the pole. There were loads of cyclists on the towpath/cycle piste, must be the fact that the Tour de France is on at the moment and would be racing in Toulouse city centre at the weekend - that always brings out the lycra-clad brigade. An old blue van stood outside the lock house; again, nobody about. Left the bottom at 4.15 p.m. heading down the 3.7 kms pound to lock 4, Lespinasse. Lots of new houses with swimming pools had been built along the canal on the left hand side, the railway follows the right bank very closely. After the houses there were lakes beyond the canal bank. Turned the pole, the lock filled and we went down, ropeless, as we usually do at all the automatic locks without keeper interference. 1.87 kms to lock 5 Bordeneuve. Turned the pole, the lock filled and we went down again. 1.95 kms to the last lock of the day St Jory, N° 6. We turned the pole and nothing happened!! Tried ringing the call out number and got an answering machine, so I jumped off at the wooden landing stage above the lock and went down to the lock to use the intercom. The guy who answered asked if I’d turned the pole (it’s hire boat season and I suppose he had to ask), yes, and nothing happened; so he said he would be there shortly - he came out of the VNF shed on the lock side! He went in the office at the end of the lock house and pressed buttons in there. The lock worked OK. He ‘phoned the lock below. I told him we weren’t passing through the next lock we were stopping below this one, so he ‘phoned again and was on the ‘phone all the while we locked through. At 6.00 p.m. we moored at the end of the piling in front of an unusual narrowboat with high bows like a small Dutch barge, called The Grand Duchy. Had a wave from its skipper as we were tying up. Another cruiser was moored where we had stopped on the way up, tied to the roots under the trees. Glad to get in the cabin out of the glare of the sunshine and the heat.