Today again when we awoke the sky was heavily overcast, and it was windy and rainy. The boat was not to be ready until 3, so we stayed in the warmth of the hotel as long as we could. The boat man allowed is to park our luggage in his garage, so we trundle it over during a lull between rain storms.
We bought cheap umbrellas (should have gotten them on day one in Rome) and they promptly turned inside out and broke. With nothing to do we had lunch and sat in the resturant as long as we could. There were no museums near – all that stuff is up at the castle. Finally, at 3 we went to get the boat, but first there is the French paperwork. And to pay for the supplemental things we had ordered.
“Is there toilet paper on the boat?”
“No, madame, but we can sell you a cleaning kit that includes two rolls of toilet paper.”
“Does the towel kit we ordered include tea towels?”
“No madame but we can rent you some for 2€.”
We finally were introduced to our boat, “Baby Herman”. It is a cross between a camper and a boat, retaining the favorable characteristics of neither. It is also nearing it’s best before date. It has that delightful mouldy smell of a wet boat.
The English speaking lady ran us through the general operation of the appliances, and pretty well nothing worked. She then called on her non-English speaking handyman to fix things. We got a new battery and a new butane bottle, and that made most things work.
Then the handyman took us out to show us how to drive, and how to make a u – turn in a 30 foot canal with a 25 foot boat – but in French. The boat is short, wide, flat bottomed, and has high windage. In short, it steers like a cow.
When back tied up, he abandoned us. We sat in the boat, two cold, forlorn miserable people.
Oh well….. Off to store to buy supplies for dinner and breakfast at least. We decided to spend the night tied up here – the weather is still stinky, and might be better tomorrow for our first locking through (or first in 30 years since we did the Rideau).
The little butane heater takes a bit of the chill off, and maybe even dries the air out a bit. It is 9C out there with rain and a wind, putting the wind chill at 4C. They say that last year here at this time it was 30C. We sure picked a rotten year.
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