Auxonne to Chagny (Or, The Very Bad Day and Aileen Has A Tantrum!)

What's that coming under the bridge - is it a monster??

We had a TERRIBLE day on Thursday 12^th, really awful and I was ready to jack it all in.  Of course, it was all first world problems when you look back and put it all into perspective, but nevertheless, it’s a day I’d prefer not to do again.  But before I open my laptop and let my fingers rumble about The Bad Day, let me take you back a week or so and we were off on our hols to Carcassonne.

It was a very early start for us on Saturday 30^th as our train from Auxonne was at 7.50am and it was a 20 minute walk to the station, however, as it was getting light as we left we didn’t feel too bad.  Our trains all ran on time and at 13.28 we pulled into Carcassonne, the sunny south of France for a week’s holiday with the ski crowd.

 

I had brought my waterproof with the hope if I did, I wouldn't need it....

We were not amused at all by the weather forecast and having arranged to meet the owners of the gite we were renting at 4pm headed into the town centre for some lunch and a glass of wine.  After doing some food and wine shopping and a little later than 4pm, we took a taxi out to our accommodation for the next week.

The gite was amazing, in the village of Arzens on the outskirts of Carcassonne, it had been the paternal grandparents’ home of the woman and brother who now run it, and they had been winemakers so it was on a very grand scale.  Marie Christine was delightful and with her English-speaking mother, Mme Guilhelm, assisting, showed us where everything was that we would need for our week.

By 6.30pm, they left us to it, Mike started making the tea, the wine was cracked open and the rest of the gang arrived in dribs and drabs.

We drank a lot of wine that week in between chilling out by the pool on the warmer (hungover) days, visiting Carcassonne, touring the local area to take in Minerve and some of the local caves, Homps where we tasted wine by the canal, Castelnaudary, where we tasted wine by the canal again…. We also looked for Richard and Fiona’s boat Ilona (who we met on the Nivernais), but didn’t see her, so she must have still been out cruising, taking advantage of the warm autumn.  We ate and drank well and had great fun back at the gite in the evenings chatting, playing pool, and wine tasting.  We were also invited to Couffoulens, where Marie-Christine and her mother live in the family chateau, and invited us to taste their wine.  Although they have had vineyards for a long, long time, they used to sell the grapes for someone else to make the wine, but last year, Marie-Christine and her mother decided to start bottling it and selling it themselves.  The cave is being done up so they can do visits and tastings.  The chateau was absolutely amazing and we felt very privileged to be invited into their home and shown around.  We left shortly after a loud crack from an antique sofa proved that the French design of legs only at the ends doesn’t really support two large men and a medium-sized  woman that well……….

 

View of Minerve from a panaromic viewpoint

Looking up at Minerve from the river bed

The huge cave at Minerve carved by the waters

No trip to the South is complete without a lunch date at Domaine Gayda

Despite our appearance, they still let us in

Coffees on the terrace

Blending in with the locals at Fanjaux

Patchwork countryside

One of the best "stumbled upon" places for lunch ever!

My dessert, from my 15euro three course meal which included a large glass of wine!!!

Not sure if that's the devil or an angel on Ali's shoulder - or just a second head........

The Addams Family!

All too soon our week was over and we were back on the train to Auxonne.  As we alighted our final train I noticed Mike was limping slightly and he said his foot felt a bit tender……. 

 

Hello old girl - have you missed us??

Sunset at Auxonne

The next morning it was clear that this was the start of a flare-up of his tendon access inflammation condition as his foot had swollen considerably.  We rammed 800mg of ibuprofen into him, as per the consultant’s instruction when we’d last seen him and crossed our fingers we’d nip it in the bud.  Trying to rest it as much as possible I walked over to the capitainerie to pay our fees before we headed off to St Jean des Losne.

Mike took the tiller which meant he could rest the foot a bit rather than going up and down the boat and sorting ropes etc on the locks, continued with the high dose of ibuprofen for the day and noted it wasn’t getting any worse.  Coming into St Jean des Losne it felt like the end of the holiday as we were now on familiar waters we’d covered earlier in the year and would be until we turned down the arm off the Canal Lateral a la Loire to Roanne.  Still unable to face a glass of wine since the Carcassonne over-indulgence, we had a quiet night and headed early to bed.

Mike had slept fitfully and his foot was now getting quite sore, but the next morning we walked up to the chandlery to buy some bits and pieces, including the books we will need for our routes next year – exciting!!  I had to go on ahead as Mike was going slowly and the chandlery was closing in 20 minutes, but he got there and we got what we needed and slowly hobbled back to the boat.  We kind of messed up our timings with our long lie, as we wanted to buy red diesel for the heating at St Jean des Losne before we continued on, but the wharf was now closed and wasn’t opening til 2.30pm – we’d thought it opened at 2pm….  So we had lunch and I worked out that we’d still have plenty time to get down to Seurre and down the lock before it closed at 6pm.

We pulled up at the wharf at 2.25pm at which point we saw the sign saying that today it’d be opening at 3pm due to a meeting….. At 69p (77cents) a litre, we didn’t want to miss out as we needed about 180 litres, which would see us through the winter.  The last time we’d filled had been when we were here in May!  Another boat joined us to wait, but by 3.40pm they’d given up….. we hung on and decided that we would just wait and then if we didn’t have time to get down to Seurre we’d stay another night here.  The (very apologetic) lady arrived just after 3.50pm and we were done and on our way by 4pm.  It was then that I realised I’d miscalculated our distance by a few kms and suddenly it would be extremely tight to get through the lock before it closed.  We hammered on down the river at 9km an hour (rock and roll!!) and I then decided to double-check the lock times….. this one was manned until 7pm – phew.  We could’ve taken the foot off the floor at this point but it’s a really boring bit of river, a deviation off the Saone which is a long straight cutting reminiscent of the Middle Levels, except with plenty of depth.

 

Not only did we make the lock at Seurre in plenty of time, they held it for us to go down with this big beauty!  (Lillyanne's big sister Pip???)

Our bright companion continues on while we pull into the port of Seurre on the left.

We were shattered as we moored up and I headed off to the capitainerie to pay for our night’s stay.  At 17euros, we made the most of the facilities and plugged into the power and filled the water tank.  Mike then continued resting his foot while I made the tea and did my usual jobs of setting up the telly and computer to watch BBCiPlayer, made the bed up, got drinks when required (still scunnered off the wine) and fell into bed shattered for another sleepless night while Mike tossed and turned and moaned and groaned with his elephantesque (by now) foot.

Tuesday morning arrived under the cover of a thick mist, and word of a strike that may potentially affect the locks ie. they may be closed if the lockies were out on strike.  We waited for the mist to clear and a few hire boats to head up the lock at Seurre and then confident that we could see and the locks were open pulled off in a small flotilla of hire boats and headed southwards to Gergy.  It was an uneventful day with the only excitement being the fact we really needed a pump out as the light had been on for a couple of days.  We’re reluctant to pump-out in a port as it’s not very pleasant for the neighbours, but trying to find somewhere to pull into on the side of the river had been proving impossible.  At Gergy we were on our own on the remote pontoon, so we quickly got the gear out and started to pump out, the tank breathing a sigh of relief as we held our breath……  We were on our third bucket of rinse water when we realised a boat heading downstream was pulling over to the side to come in.  The smell hadn’t wholly dissipated and we could have done with another rinse, but we quickly finished, cleaned up and were just packing the kit away as they pulled in.  A lady then came down the gangplank, stepped over the hose, climbed on their boat and as we were putting the kit back in the locker, they pulled off again……grrrrrr….. could’ve had that extra rinse!!

Having exerted his foot somewhat with a bit of pumping, Mike retired to the settee with a bucket of water, ice-pack and pain killers while I did everything else – willingly – for the moment……..

 

It feels better when they operate a large lock for several of us, rather than just one incy ickle narrowboat...

Wednesday dawned clear and bright, we’d had no rain since we came back from Carcassonne and once the days had warmed up, we were back in shorts for the afternoons.  Today we were glad to get off the river and onto the Canal du Centre and headed up the giant 10m lock to the port at Fragnes, with a stop en route at the huge L’Eclerc supermarket.  Mike had had a bad night on the settee with his foot, so walking around the supermarket was out of the question, and it seemed to still be getting bigger at times, though the swelling seemed to move around his foot between his toes and his ankle, or should that be ‘cankle’…..  So we stopped at the supermarket and I went and got the shopping, which was fairly easy as you can wheel the trolley to the top of the stairs to the mooring, though the stairs could do with a bit of tlc.  Getting some diesel however was abandoned for another time and we continued on the half hour cruise to Fragnes, where we moored behind the American tourists who Mike had shouted at for going past us too fast whilst I was at the supermarket, causing us to bang against the uneven metal piling and scratching off some of the blacking.  They didn’t understand his initial communication of, “Trop Vite!!  TROP VITE!!!” – however, “YOU’RE GOING TOO FUCKIN’ FAST!!!!” seemed to do the trick.

 

Bright autumn days continue as we leave Gergy

There was a working boat and a commercial loading up that we had to squeeze between to reach the lock from the Saone up onto the Canal du Centre

We couldn't fit in with the two hire boats ahead so had to wait for the lock.

Going up?!  This lock is so smooth it's like being in a giant lift!

Sunshine and blue skies await us at the top as we come onto the Canal du Centre

Mike doesn’t do resting very well, so even while his foot was bad and he was ‘resting’ it, after a few minutes he was up rubbing back paint, filling, undercoating as it is also the time of year for touching up the paintwork and varnishing the shutters.  Of course, once Mike has done the preparation, I do the more delicate paintwork as I have a steadier and more patient hand for staying in the lines.  So inbetween everything else, shopping, cooking, waiting on the patient, my usual jobs of tv and making up/taking down the bed, I was varnishing the shutters that Mike had stripped back and allowed to dry out the previous few days.  Then at Fragnes, I was sent out to collect a bag of kindling from the local park, which I did and snapped it all into the right size to fit in the drawer under the stove.  Shattered yet again, once I’d made the tea, cleared up and emptied the recycling along at the port, we headed to bed for me to get a good night’s sleep and Mike not to.

Unable to sleep during the night, Mike came to bed around 6am and fell into a sound sleep, so I left him until just after noon.  After I’d made breakfast, cleared the dishes, made the bed up and filled the tank with water, we headed off, and decided that with the foot not going down any and no pain killers or anti inflammatories having any effect, we should go to the pharmacy when we reached Chagny.  The day started off easily enough, with us remembering that we needed to enter and exit the locks on the Canal du Centre in the middle, otherwise the sensors in the middle of the lower gates wouldn’t register us entering the lock and the lock wouldn’t operate.  The locks were a mixture of reasonable 2.5 or so metres, with the odd 5m one chucked in.  At the first 5m we seemed to be stuck on a red light, so I got off and went to see what was happening.  The top gates were still open but there were no other boats in sight, so after about 5 minutes I pushed the comms button for assistance just after which a boat appeared coming round the corner to go down.  I went back to the boat and we waited for the green light to go.  My pushing of the button, however, had sent VNF over to see what the problem was, which was just as well really as the lock was horrible.  We tied onto the floating bollard at the front, and as we were using floating bollards, Mike decided to use the rope at the back as well and come up just on ropes, not using the engine to hold her into the side.  Big mistake.  Because of our length we were sat over the ground sluices and they showed absolutely no mercy.  Seconds in and water was spraying up the side of the boat and she shot out into the middle of the chamber, the tied-on front line snatched at its limit and she rolled to the side.  Meanwhile at the back, Mike was trying to hold onto his rope as he was pushed out at the same time as trying to use the engine to get us back under control.  It was awful and I’m so glad the lock keeper was there to stop it if necessary.  It wasn’t however, and we came under control and glided up the rest of the way fairly smoothly.  At the top, the lock keeper said he’d meet us at the next big lock as if he worked it, he could bring the water in more slowly.  He reiterated that we must make sure we go in and out in the middle of the chamber so the sensors see us, which we had been doing so I’m not sure what the problem was.  After the next two deep locks (STOP PRESS – ONE OF THESE WAS OUR 3000^TH LOCK!) it soon became clear that we are actually too low to trigger the sensor going in under the lower gates.  We had a few of these to endure and each time was just as scary as the first and I was starting to dread them and even put my life jacket on after the first one – I just didn’t trust them at all.  Meanwhile, Mike was beginning to struggle with his foot, so it was with huge relief that, having had someone flag us to slow down as we passed their moored boat at tick-over in a deep channel, causing no wash and not causing any boats to move a muscle, that we finally reached Chagny and moored in at the nice new empty port.  I went to answer a call of nature which meant when the capitaine pitched up, Mike had to speak to her, which didn’t please him, but I hissed, “I’m in the fuckin’ toilet, what do you expect me to do!!”  Turns out she spoke good English, and when we said we wouldn’t need water or electricity, she suggested we moor on the quay opposite which was free, whereas she’d still have to charge us if we stayed where we were – very kind.  So we moved the boat, then locked her up and headed to the nearest pharmacy, 0.4km away.  I walked on ahead as it shut at 7.30pm and it was now 6.25pm, but just over 2/3 of the way there, my phone lost signal and suddenly google maps told me I was 45 minutes away and had moved me to an entirely different part of the town……..  Not knowing the town at all, I wasn’t confident enough to continue on without guidance in case we went off on a wild goose chase and missed the pharmacy, so I turned around back towards the town centre, meeting Mike hobbling along and decided I’d had enough.  Enough of google maps, enough of no signal, enough of his sore foot, enough of the boat, enough of no tv, enough of painting, varnishing, pumping out our own toilet, having to squeeze past the only other occupant of our home cos it’s so small, having to make the bed up every night and morning.  Just ENOUGH!!!!!!  So much ENOUGH I did the best thing under the circumstances and burst into tears and threw my phone to the ground, not once, not twice, but three times.   But each time onto grass cos I didn’t reeeeaaaaalllly want it to break……..

Back in town I reached another pharmacy with 10 minutes to spare before its 7pm closing time.  I had written an explanation of Mike’s condition on google translate, so after explaining he had a problem with an inflamed foot, let her read the background.  Having established he’d been on ibuprofen for three days, she said that she was unable to give anything stronger without a prescription and could Mike go and see a doctor?  Mike arrived at this point and when she saw his foot she said he really should see a doctor and offered to phone one for us.  We leapt on the chance to see the GP and a few minutes later, with the aid of a newly purchased walking stick, we walked the 50 yards to wait in a line of three to see the doc.

She spoke no English, but was very pleasant, and was visibly shocked by the size of Mike’s foot.  Again, I showed her the explanation, established that it’s not gout (or la goutte), and she had a good look, took his blood pressure, checked his pulse and then wrote out a prescription for him; steroids, strong pain killers, and another bright blue pill that said, ‘opium powder’ on the box (?).  “That’ll be 50 euros.” She said as she busied herself putting her kit away.  Now, when I saw the doc last year in Carcassonne, it was a standard 25 euros and you filled in a form that the GP signed, for claiming it back when you get home, under the reciprocal health arrangements we have as members of the EU (oh, happy days…..).  There was no form here, and despite the card machine on the desk, she insisted on cash only – well, it saved her a trip to the cashline and to be honest, we’d have paid 100 to get the prescription……  She then rang a pharmacy, due to close in 5 minutes, to ask if they’d wait for us, but having seen where it was, we asked if there was a local taxi company as it was a 20 minute walk away (the first one we’d tried to reach!) and we didn’t have a car.  When she learned this, she quickly picked up the phone again and phoned another one 50m down the road where there was still someone there, even though they were now closed.  They said they’d wait for us, so we thanked the GP for her help and waddled down to the pharmacy.  The pharmacist was lovely and spoke a bit of English, as he unlocked the doors and let us in to get our drugs.  Having established that Mike could drink with these drugs, we asked if there was a local taxi firm we could call as we couldn’t face the walk up to the port again.  Not only did they find a taxi company, but they called them for us and arranged for them to pick us up immediately from outside the pharmacy.  You know, you so often get help like this, or hear from other boaters of stories where they’ve been helped like this and you really have to hand it to the French – they don’t like to see someone in difficulty.

With a mouthful of pills swallowed, back at the boat we opened a bottle of wine and I got on with making the tea.  Within a few hours Mike’s foot seemed to ease off and whether it was the drugs, the relief or the wine, I don’t know, but when we went to bed (after chasing off a youngster trying to knick the life-ring off the roof), Mike hit the deck and slept soundly right through.

What a day.  So full of shit, but then so full of kind, helpful people that restore your faith in humanity.  

(Apologies for the lack of photos for the last couple of days of this entry but a) we've done this bit before and there was nothing new and b) I really wasn't in the mood!).