Taddy Tales

  It's the 30th June 2021 and we're getting ready to go cruising.  That's a simple enough plan but the world has changed around us.  For a start, we're 3 months late.  That's because it was illegal for us to leave the UK in April.  Second, we can't go anywhere yet because the Belgian government requires us to quarantine for a week before we do.  Our very presence here seems to be against the rules.  Finally, we can only stay 90 days because our fellow countrymen decided that was progress.  A few years ago, we took our ability to do these things for granted.  The new restrictions seem so incredible that we're leaning not to take things for granted.  We're also learning that you have to work hard to get what you want and take some risks. The Belgian government, like the UK, is working to get people vaccinated.  So far they've achieved 34% which is a bit more then 2/3 of the UK's 49%.  And with an infection rate of about half the ...

Sitting on my back deck looking at the view.  There's serious history here.  No, not the chateau in the background although it's very nice indeed. The weight of history in this nice little village of Long on the Somme rests in the unremarkable bridge.  Built with concrete casting and a brick parapet, the town have brightened it up with flowers.  But traffic rolls between the 2 sides of the village all day and I doubt many stop to consider what might have happened here. The history I'm thinking of started on 20th May 1940 when the German army occupied the upper village and made ready to cross the Somme on their march west along the channel coast.  The French army set up on the long road approaching the bridge from the west in order to prevent the crossing.  Fighting reached a peak on 2 June when Captain Martel and his squadron of anti tank troops held their place as they were destroyed to the last man by the German artillery set up in front of the chateau....

We have spent the last 2 weeks in mainly rural Belgium, climbing the River Dender/Dendre and then the Blaton-Ath canal.  This brings us from the heart of Flanders to just short of the French border.  Tomorrow, we will cross the unmarked border into France and journey through Picardy. But, in a week when Belgium celebrated its national day, we've been thinking about Belgium as a country.  This is our 3rd summer cruising in this surprisingly interesting country and we've been struck by its differences.  Flanders feels like the assertive part of Belgium.  Its people speak Dutch and often prefer to speak English rather than French.  They are largest part of Belgium.  With a per capita GDP of €35,300, they are (on average) 42% richer than their compatriots in Wallonia who have only €24,800.  And they seem to have a strong sense that the Flemish fund the Walloons.  The Walloons are a bit less than a third of the population and they feel comfortably...

It's July 2020 and we should have been cruising for 3 months now.  But it's 2020 and you don't need me to tell you that 2020 is different from anything we've experienced or planned.  I'm not going to say the C-word but 2020 will be remembered as the year that mucked things up! Three months at home without boarding a boat was tough and when it became possible to return to Bruges and get started again, we packed up and headed for the tunnel.  We think we can manage 3 months which rules out travelling too far south but that doesn't matter.  There's plenty of lovely water in Belgium and northern France.  And we'll avoid the drought which is already plaguing central France. I say drought because we seem to have missed the best of the weather and I'm writing this on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Aalst.  I've been slow to start blogging again as I didn't want to complain about  . . . well, you know what about.  But this morning a fellow boater passed...

We chugged on along the Aisne on marvelously peaceful waters.  We had almost looped Paris and were headed back towards Reims.  But we turned north before that and headed uphill into Picardy to start our journey home.  The Canal de l'Oise a Aisne has just a few commercial boats and not many of us pleasure boats.  We climbed a flight of locks and chugged through a tunnel in splendid isolation.  It was a lazy few days.  Then we turned onto the St Quentin Canal and continued our climb.  One night we moored on an island and then we had this beautiful little 'Halte Nautique' all to ourselves. We found ourselves back on the western front.  The St Quentin was an important barrier and there are plenty of British cemeteries along the way.  We try to visit as many as we can because they are so moving.  We were also moved to find many New Zealand graves, a country that is special to us.  We moored in Marcoing right by the bridge that Henry ...

The picture is a little blurred but, yes, it is a beaver - or castor in French.  Two of them swam by the boat late one evening whilst we were moored on the Oise in quite an urban area and only about 50 km north of Paris.  We took this picture with a phone and have cropped it heavily.  But we were pretty close. This made for an exciting first evening for daughter and son-in-law Al and Jon who arrived in their campervan together with baby Peggy who was just 3 months old. We had turned off the Seine and onto the Oise at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine a few days previously.  That's an interesting place being 'home' for many of the commercial boaters.  There's a floating chapel and boarding school for the children of boaters.  There's also a lot of boats moored with retired boaters who have decided to spend their retirement on their boat. On to Pontoise where we were a bit dismayed to be the only boat on an 80m pontoon in August.  OK - there's no c...

Paris was packed with tourists all snapping the views and having a great time.  But very few of them were passing the Eiffel Tower in their own boat that day.  It felt VERY cool.  Probably the highlight of several exciting days visiting the city of love.  But first we had to get there. We cruised the lower reaches of the Marne which pass through the up-market southern suburbs of Paris.  Very pleasant but not many boats and just the odd commercial. The extravagant loops typical of the lower reaches of a river are shortened by a short tunnel at Joinville le Pont.  Everything changes as the river becomes very busy and quickly joins the Seine and you're crossing under the Peripherique.  We'd been joined by other pleasure boats and there were large commercial boats moving fast in both directions and passing under the many bridges.  The navigation instructions warn against stopping to admire the view.  I get their point - there's so much...

The River Marne runs through the Champagne region before it joins the Seine south of Paris.  It's navigable from Epernay which is about 130km from Paris.  The river makes it way down a beautiful shallow valley where the hillsides are covered in vineyards or trees.  There's not many locks and there's some lovely towns to visit.  It's popular with boaters so we were expecting it to be crowded at the end of July.  But it wasn't really.  There's plenty of boats but following the basic rule of 'cruise early, moor early, we found we could tie up in the places we wanted to. The intense heat had gone and the weather was glorious.  We didn't rush.  We found some nice restaurants - the dessert trolley in Dormans was to die for! The First World War theme continued.  There were 2 battles of the Marne (1914 & 1918) and there were reminders of this in most towns. Each town has more champagne houses (apparently there are 5000) but we'd learne...

Warning!  This post contains pictures of a grandchild . . . We're back.  Where have we been?  Everywhere!  And we just lost our 'round tuit' when it came to Taddy Tales.  But we're going to have a catch-up on our amazing summer now. We were joined by Cat and grandson, Alfred, at Reims for a trip into Champagne.  The following day, we were joined by Julie's mother.  So Taddy was pretty full as we headed back down the Canal de L'Oise a Marne. Alfred soon settled into boat life.  At 13 months he was very mobile and many crew members feared he might fall overboard.  We have a small person lifejacket but the weather was incredibly hot and it seemed too much of a challenge to negotiate him wearing it.  But he was no fool - all the food was on the boat and this boy really likes his grub. We climbed back over the canal summit and through the 2.3km Billy Tunnel.  That didn't frighten anyone, old or young.  On a baking ho...

We had guests arriving and didn't want to take them all the way to Paris.  So we decided on a detour up the Canal Aisne a la Marne to Reims.  This took us up a flight of locks and through the Billy tunnel (a mere 2.3km). The mooring in Reims was right in the city centre and close to the historic cathedral.  It was also under a flyover and across the canal from the A26 motorway.  So peaceful it wasn't.  But it gave us the opportunity to explore the history of this important city .  The cathedral sums it up quite well with its century old tradition of royal coronations, brought up to date by being the place where France and Germany formally reconciled in 1962.  It's a history that binds us all and I worry that we're too quick to forget it sometimes in our little island. We also enjoyed a visit to Eisenhower's headquarters and the room where the surrender of the 3rd Reich was signed on 6th May 1945.  It's a lovely story as Stalin was furious ...

Our last night on the Canal Marne au Rhin gave us a lovely mooring and calm evening.  I flew my drone to get this nice picture.  The weed had cleared and the weather was beautiful edging towards hot . . . At the end of the canal was a junction.  Turn left for the Bourgogne and right to the Marne.  The town at the junction is Vitry le Francois and that seemed a nice place for the weekend.  Arriving at the harbour it seemed full but the delightful harbour mistress, Pascale, waved us in and chased off another boat that was slow leaving.  This was the end of our 2 weeks with Marille the Poodle and son-in-law Chris arrived to stay overnight and collect her.  It got hot. A heat that had us hiding from the sun and draping sheets to keep the boat just a little cooler.  We visited a Vet to get something stronger to stop the idiot Retriever gathering ticks.  That was a success for some carefully researched French. We set off west on the Canal L...

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...