Wandering slowly Downhill

This canal is only 50km or so long but it has 74 locks for us to tackle. They're all downhill which is easier but you still need to get into an efficient pattern. 300m out and you see a single red light. Press the remote control and that changes to red and green as the lock is prepared. By the time you get there, it's just a green light. In you go, lift the blue rod and you're down and out it less than 10 minutes. But it doesn't always work that way. Too often, we arrive at a lock to find 2 red lights. That means the lock is 'en panne' and is not going to respond to anyone unless they're in a little white van with the VNF logo on the side. Leaving Ligny, we decided on an early start to 'beat the heat'. The locks switch on at 7am for commercial traffic and 9am for pleasure boats. But there's little commercial traffic and plenty of pleasure boats were starting then. We found the 'deux feux rouges' at 7.30. Calling VNF...