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European Adventure 2017
No storms last night and today is warm but overcast so not as hot as yesterday. Geoff and I took the bikes off the boat and cycled into the village and picked up fresh croissants for everyone for breakfast. So cool to be doing something like this! After a leisurely breakie we headed off down the canal at a sedate 8kph. There are 34 locks in total during our trip four completed yesterday and two today. Our boat is a 6 berth penichette with three cabins. The front cabin (apologies Mike and Maureen as I can't remember the proper term) has a double bed and the two aft (?) cabins have two singles which can push together to make a double but they only supply single sheets. Each one has its own bathroom (and I can hear Mike calling it by its proper name! Something head or head something??) which is very compact but functional. Two bikes are parked on the top at the bow and we have a fly bridge at the rear. There is a very well equipped kitchen and saloon area below. All in all very comfortable and good fun. It's nice all being together as we travel for a change. The day got hotter after lunch which we had on the boat as everything in town closes down from 12 til at least 2pm. We needed groceries but that shop was closed until 3pm! Poor. Charlie and Mandy had put their wallets, passports etc in the little safe in their cabin but couldn't get it open this afternoon. A call to the boat company resulted in a rather cross employee coming out to find us and getting very agitated when he couldn't get it open and kept blaming Mandy for using a wrong code. The fact that he arrived with no tools what so ever seemed a bit strange and his arm and hand expressions and French swear words didn't seem to work for him either so eventually he resorted to getting a crowbar and mallet. That only succeeded in damaging the safe door surround but it still wouldn't open. He had absolutely no clue how to open it and kept saying that as their friends had money what was the urgency? Geoff sent an email to Galts with photos of the safe and got a reply back well before any resolution from this end, however it looks like it will need to be cut open and that apparently can't happen for a few days yet as there is no one to do it until we get further down the river. We went out for a fantastic meal to night and we are still sitting out on the fly bridge as I write as it is too hot to go inside and we are all too full. It is nearly 11pm. A lovely day at a much more sedate pace.
- comments
Mike Go Girl, very impressed with your grasp of nautical terminology! What a great time you are having.
Colleen You're obviously having a great time. Enjoying the commentary and photos. Will save some snails out of garden for Geoff!
mum Third zttempt at a rdply comment. Juxt czught up with backlog and its great. Thanks for sharing it all and the pictures are grest. Hope you enjoyed the snails Geoff and that they didnt have the same effect ax they did on me! Iloved them though first time round! You will all be connoiseurs of wine shen you come home so kiwi wine growers better watch out. Keep the news coming.