Monday
Got up at about 8.15 and had our usual fruit and cereal breakfast and then bade farewell to Charlie and Lari who had a much tighter schedule than us and had to get going. We all then walked up to the caves where we had a wine tasting at about 9.30 am. Bought a few bottles of their very nice wines and then walked through the village of Bailly. Not much to see except very quaint, very old houses – I suspect that a lot of them are now holiday homes. Very well looked after and affluent looking.
After studying the chart and plotting our trip for the day we set off quite late for the little port of Vermenton, a short way off the main canal and a perfect place to stop and water up and hook up to the power to recharge batteries etc.
However, we forgot that the locks close at 12 noon for lunch and arrived at the first lock just on noon. We pulled over and made some cheese on toast and had a beer. It has been exceptionally hot today – in excess of 35 deg. Most of which we have spent outside pulling on ropes, tying up etc. Eventually made the trip to Vermenton through very beautiful countryside, absolutely picture perfect canal boating territory. Arrived at our berth eventually and managed to find a spot with power and water. We walked into the village and eventually (after nearly an hour) found a supermarket and walked back to the boat laden down with more groceries. We were all absolutely b*****ed and had a cold shower each to revive ourselves. Drinks on the grass outside our boat and then dinner. We have all found the French food to be mostly terrible in the restaurants, so are happy to eat in while we can.

All really tired and sunburnt so off to bed now at 9.40 ish.