Life is Good , Living its even better

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Isn’t it amazing what life throws at you in the space of a year? We are currently sitting in the absolutely lovely halt nautique where we were last October in the Canal du Nivernais. It is one of our favourite halts and despite being the peak of the season currently we are here all on our own. It’s just so relaxing sitting under a sun umbrella with lovely views and hearing the birds singing. It was Amigos favourite French place and it is where came to bury him last November. Our main worry is that Yeti decides to dig in the wrong place as he is currently into digging big holes, hopefully this does not happen on the boat!

We had planned, after Marg's broken ribs and broken wrist were better, to cruise the Burgundy Canal, but lack of water, too much weed and the prospects of it closing when we were half way through changed our plans so we decided to take our time and cruise the Nivernais again this year.

Marg broke 3 ribs when she fell off the jetty at Moret and landed in the water. The ribs were badly fractured and this happened as she hit the edge of the jetty on the way down. We were getting a little worried as this was her third nasty fall in a month or so. Just before leaving Briare Marg got some new variable focus glasses and we now believe that these were the cause of her missing her footing everywhere. We have since talked to lots of people, mainly middle aged and over, who have had similar problems adjusting to this type of lens. Marg has since got a new pair of single focus glasses and touch wood has had no problems since.

Pete's medical problem turns out to be prostate cancer, a biopsy under a GA confirmed this, and we have to wait until end of September for a MRI and further prognosis. We will then decide what to do and where to do it. So far Pete is quite happy to have any further treatment in France as the Clinic he went to in Melun was great despite the language difficulty. He reckons if you have to have nurses fiddling with you it’s better if they have French accents. The border line diabetes seems to have taken a back seat at the moment but we are now very careful with our diet and although have not been eating sugary foods or drinks for donkeys years have tried to cut back even more. It is difficult now as we are in blackberry season and those pies and crumbles just need some sugar, and then there is the custard to go with it!

We seem to have conquered the French National Health System barriers and all Pete had to pay was 18 Euros for something for his day in hospital etc and we are now getting all our past 12 months medical expenditure refunded from the French Government. This may be some sort of record as we have talked to people who are still waiting after 18 months. It has involved multiple trips from Moret and Briare to Orleans, lots of letters and phone calls (waste of time). The people in the office in Orleans have been charming and lovely to deal with as has been the same with all French Government Departments so far.

Yeti is just great, such a happy little dog, so much fun and he has grown very quickly but at 7 months will not grow much more. He is keeping us fit as he just loves to run and play and walk for miles. He sits on deck as we are going along but has to go into his deck kennel when we are going through locks. This is because he would jump off and chase other dogs, cats, birds, joggers, cyclists or we would trip over him whilst line handling. Currently he is digging holes where he has seen small rodents go down, knowing Yeti he may dig up a white rabbit with a watch.

We had a great time when our friend Les from Perth came to join us for a 60^th Birthday treat. We had fantastic weather for our cruise down the Seine to Paris and had 10 days in the Paris Arsenal marina. Les did lots of sightseeing and we joined her for most of it, having done the Eiffel Tower about 4 times in the past we declined this trip. We went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe , a first for us despite the number of times we have been to Paris. We decided to use the Bateau Bus as our means of transport around Paris, it meant that we could relax and not have to worry about navigating through all the crazy French boats, barges, speed boats, police boats, etc that were zooming around. We had done this before in Swara a couple of times and it is not relaxing.

Our plans had originally been to then go through the Marne to the Champagne area but as the medical stuff was taking place in the opposite direction we decided to go back to Moret sur Loing for scans, biopsies etc. We were just ready to leave here when Marg fell and broke her ribs. If you have to be somewhere for an extended period then Moret is the place to be, it’s superb. Our two favourite restaurants in France are the St Tropez in Briare, where we had new years day lunch, and the Maharaja Indian restaurant in Fontainebleau, fabulous value and great food. Les shouted us lunch for Pete’s Birthday here, yummy! We took Les back to Paris to catch her train by train from Moret. The Euro star check in was delayed because of a bomb scare, would imagine there are lots of delays now with all the “migrant” issues at Calais.

Our trip from Moret to here at Mailly le Chateau has been delightful. The most difficult part has been trying to stop Margaret leaping off the boat with lines etc but as her ribs mend she is back to being wonder woman, shimmying up ladders , closing lock gates etc.

We stopped at Monterau again, this time we enjoyed the town, last time we did not, perhaps that was due to a very bad two day hangover due to a party with some Aussies.

The Yonne River was just as delightful as last year although we prefer to see it in late autumn early winter when all the trees have changed colour and it is just splendid.

We spent a night at Pont sur Yonne which has one of the best markets for a small town we have come across, the local fruit and veggies are lovely, cherries for 3.5 Euros a kilo straight off the trees, melons that are just so sweet and juicy. It is so hard to go past the Rotisserie chickens, we used to love them when we were in France on Swara but now we have our Webber Barbecue and think we can do them better.

We had a few days on the Quai at Sens which is a charming town with a magnificent cathedral and even better Hotel de Ville. The Market from the last place was here and even bigger! We had a 7 hour lunch with some friends from Briare who are going the same way , it is almost third world how someone can set up a bar /restaurant on the quay with minimal facilities. At one stage our friend had to lend them a generator so they could carry on cooking! Never saw that movie though, can just imagine Barbara Windsor with a French accent and lacy bra... The food was ordinary but the vast quantities of cheap rose went down well followed by the various bottles of red back on their boat. Phew!! Thank goodness only a one day hangover.

We spent a couple of days at Joigny and that was just learning how to pronounce it! We did the historic houses tour again and this time the tourist office suggested we do the tour of the Second world war heroes as well. It is unusual but Joigny seems to not have forgotten the people who were killed by the Nazis.

We were going to stop more often on this trip but the weather was just perfect for travelling so we decided to go on to Auxerre and stay for a few days. We were really enjoying the lovely city when we were asked to move by the Port managers as they wanted to put a bigger boat in our place and expected us to go alongside another boat, as we had already paid for the night and the next one we were not very impressed. It seemed to be all about money not customer satisfaction so we asked for a refund and left. We tied up alongside the canal still in Auxerre but free.

Stopped a couple of times along the way to here, a nice little halt nautique just outside a large wine cave but we resisted the temptation and gave our livers a rest.

We have had some very hot weather but the AC unit comes into its own, whilst others are sweltering in their very expensive boats we are nice and cool in Vintage Cru.

We have bought a satellite dish and decoder box, all for 80 Euros from a hardware shop and can now watch all the free to air British channels plus hundreds of others that we don’t bother with, have to avoid all those shopping channels as they seem to have lots of good gadgets.

So from here to somewhere nice along the canal and a bientot until the next time.

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