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!)