SIZE MATTERS

Well it does when going through the Souterrain de Riqueval (Riqueval Tunnel) at 5.670km long it's the longest canal tunnel in France. As it's so long you are not allowed to use your engine (exhaust fumes) so they tow you with an electric tow boat pulling itself through the tunnel along a chain, known as a warping tug. As it only goes twice a day in each direction you line up to for a towed convoy and biggest goes first. Size matters. They can tow up to 30 péniche's at a time, quite a convoy.

When we decided to go through there were only 2 other smaller boats so we went first. You have to have 30 metre ropes to go between the individual boats. Starting off is very difficult as we were more slippery through the water than the tug held to a chain, so we were gaining on the tow boat. Unfortunately this caused the tow rope to go under Soraya and it got stuck on the bottom rib which is rough. This stopped the convoy! Lots of glum expressions and shrugging of shoulders from the tug drivers. Talk about calling out a plongeur (diver). I thought I'll sort this out myself, quarter of an hour later with a crow bar and the barge pole (yes we do have one) I managed to free the offending ropes, smiles all round.

The tunnel itself is arch shaped, little wider or taller than Soraya so steering without power on the end of a snaking rope for ~ 2 hours in a sporadically light tunnel was exhausting. Managed to get through without a scrape. Lucky. After half an hour breather we got to Souterrain de Lesdins. A mere 1.098km and under our own power. Easy.

The stylish electric tug

FOLLOW THAT SIGN

The weather has been very changeable.  We've had some super days and then sudden rain and high winds. So when I saw this sign, does it mean sunshine?..... I said to Geoff Follow it, Follow it!! But it was a bit tricky in Soraya, as it was on the road........however we've had great weather the last few days, so perhaps we went the right way!

Rays of Sunshine (peut-être)

BEER

Found the best pub! Not really but it did have a great asset. You didn't have to go to the bar. Give the publican some € and the pump at your table dispensed beer until the credit ran out.

Good pub.

Well it's a plan.

LES BEAUX ARTS - A bit of education

Amazing how much the French spend publicly on les Beaux Arts and public musée. It's great. For the artistically interested I would recommend the following, in no order of preference:

La Piscine - Musée d'Art et d'Industrie de Roubaix

What an amazing space converted from an Art Deco swimming pool, both around the swimming pool and in the changing cubicles. Individual cubicles exiting straight onto the pool all in specially made bricks in white glaze. Yes and Picasso's. The best was the pattern books. Roubaix was known for woven fabrics and they have thousands of big books of fabric samples from individual mills at a particular date. They are amazing and so fresh they should be on the market today. No more fabric talk.

Musée d'Art Moderne Lille-Métropole

Lots of controversial pieces including a new wing devoted to La Collection D'Art Brut, one of the only collections, all a lot strange!

Musée du Louvre-Lens

Lens a former mining town. All mines closed (I think), OK let's do a Bilbao ie a Guggenheim Art Gallery and encourage inward investment/tourism. Well I think it's working. Certainly the museum/gallery is amazing a huge low translucent building on a slope. The main exhibition space starts at the top of the slope with prehistoric art and you walk down the equivalent of a few football pitches of art/sculpture to the present day. As the Louvre (Paris) has a few bits of art in the basement that it wasn't displaying, it shipped them up to Lens so the items on display are the best. 

Last but not least Palais de Beaux-Arts de Lille. Lots of stuff, and great modern chandeliers. The most fascinating exhibits are the models of all the northern border towns of France in the 16/1700's. Yes I know it sounds boring but they are amazing. Each model is the size of our living room in Bath with every house, window, church, tree etc. All in 3D to illustrate the defences of the town. These models took 10 to 20 years to make and are all still in existence and in remarkable condition.

Well there's the educational bit. Normal service will be resumed. Got a 5 + km tunnel to do tomorrow!

WIND, LOCK-INS, STRIKES AND NOW BIG BARGES AND GANTRIES

Progress has been slow recently due to many incidents by nature and others. First it was the high winds in Douai. Then we were trapped in a lock on the Scarpe Superior as the gates closed and then failed to open. This was followed by a change of route due to the strikes (now over).

Today a new delay. We were told by the lock keeper there was a delay at the next lock. We thought it's 12 noon must be lunch time. We arrived at the next lock to find boats moored all over the place. On investigation a large modern commercial barge had been exiting the lock and for reasons unknown had his crane partially raised. This caught on the bridge/gantry over the lock and pulled it down onto the barge taking out the radar, satellite communications, bending the crane and lots of other equipment + squashing the batelier's (boatman's) nice new Audi A7! Ouch!

The attached barge and gantry

No problem really just a 4 hour delay whilst a crane was hired and the offending gantry removed from the barge. Lots of money! Even the lock keeper said 'Impressive isn't it!'

Whilst the rest of the gantry was leaning over the lock at a precarious angle it was decided by the many people involved that the lock should open as there were now many large commercial barges and a plaisance (ourselves) virtually blocking the canal.

LIPSTICK, RED AND FRENCH

I've always thought of French women as sexy and fond of lipstick but new levels are being reached in Northern France. The birds are now going for it.

Le Musée de La Chartreuse, Douai.

UNE GRÈVE DES ÉCLUSIERS

As the saying goes shit happens! Navigating down the Canal du Nord, came to a lock and we were told by the lock keeper that there is a strike of the lock keepers further down the canal for the last 5 days! We were not aware as we were previously on a different canal. Asking when the grève will end there was a shrugging of shoulders, ie. no idea. A bit of internet research revealed that there are so many boats waiting to go through once the strike is over it would take 2 - 3 days to clear them. This is on top of the best time for the strike to stop ~2-3 days so 4+ days. U turn time so it's not La Somme as planned it's now Saint Quentin. Am I bothered or are we bothered!

The guillotine lock we did twice in rapid succession thanks to la grève.

A LOCK-IN AND NO FRITES!

Well it had to happen sometime and it did!!  We were on La Scarpe Supérieure heading for Arras. The locks are all automatic, we have a zapper which as we approach the lock sets everything in motion. The gates opened, in we went. The gates closed and we waited.....Nothing! The gates hadn't completely closed therefore the sluice gates hadn't opened. After a while we pulled the emergency handle and waited.....Nothing! Nobody came and there was no one around. I phoned the numbers we'd been given in case of any problems, one just gave a website and on the other I managed to speak to someone but couldn't get him to do anything.  

Geoff trying to 'fix' the lock

Eventually we stopped a passer-by in a white van, explained our problem and got him to talk to the guy on the telephone.  After a long conversation and some hilarity....'les anglais stuck in a lock'.....he said someone would come in 30 minutes! Great!! About an hour later an engineer came opened a locked cupboard and got the sluice gates working and we were on our way again. We moored later on for the night and saw a friterie in the distance....great BBQ steak and chips tonight. Went to buy the frites and the guy said no frites left....I said but its a friterie, how can you run out of frites....c'est incroyable! So it was oven chips from the freezer....not quite the same!

VANISHING CARS

We were moored in a quiet area across from a large fenced warehouse in Lille a while ago. A large commercial barge arrived and quickly moored up. During the mooring a crew member was raising the crane and a section of the deck opened on hydraulics. By the time the barge had come to rest the crane was fully up and a very smart Mercedes arrived on the quayside. Instantly the car was attached to the crane, the car lifted and lowered into the hold.  The mooring rope was detached and the barge moved off whilst the crane was being lowered and the hold hatch closed. The whole process took barely a couple of minutes. Car nicely concealed in small section of a 100 metre plus long barge carrying bulk cargo moving seamlessly across borders in Europe.

The barge in question

Draw your own conclusion to this event. It did seem very strange.

NONNETTES OR NO NONNETTES - THERE IS NO QUESTION

Just come across a new friend for coffee time, Nonnettes. 

La Nonnette is a petit gâteau made from a base of 'pain d'épices, d'orange et de miel' with a gooey centre of marmalade or apricot jam, a speciality of Dijon.

Yum!

La Nonnette

We're staying around Douai slightly longer then planned due to unseasonal high winds. Steering an 80 tonne steel barge in winds gusting up to 60 kph, not a good idea. Unless your into takeing out the Tupperware. The wind strength has been amazing. We were in Douai centre and a huge gust of wind hit us. This was followed by a massive crashing sound we looked round and an 'entire' shop front, plate glass window and all became detached from the building and was standing still on one piece in the middle of the pavement to everyones surprise.

SCOTLAND OR FRANCE

I was really sure we were in France until I saw.....Scotland. A huge commercial barge bearing down on us as we waited for the lock.

Not France?

The lock was busy and took a while. We ended up with two other barges each 80m long and Scotland! When we came out of the lock, our engine sounded fine but we couldn't build up any speed.....had something got caught in the propeller? Very likely in a lock. We decided to moor up for the night. The first two moorings on our charts didn't exist, but the third did.  It was very difficult to moor as the posts were too far apart for Soraya. They were made for larger barges. After lots of back and forth movements, we were moored up properly. But good news! Suddenly the  propeller seemed fine and next morning was back to normal, thank goodness. It could have been a piece of polythene, rags etc......who knows? Fortunately Geoff (not me!) didn't have to put the wetsuit on and dive in.

A post too far!

SAXOPHONES AND ORGANS

Douai is a town well off the tourist route, but! it has some interesting features, great buildings, saxophones and big organs, also it is where the Douay version of the Bible was translated. Oh I nearly forgot helicopters. Yes this is the town were the first helicopter took off from, allegedly. Hardly a maiden flight it only rose 2 feet off the ground! Still you've got to start somewhere.

What more do you need? Well beer and food for a start, it has these, yes and great canals.

Saxaphones

The Organ in Saint-Pierre

ps. Lace Curtains and Tatoos coming soon.

SCOOTS

My trusty Vespa scooter is now French.  Various people said don't bother trying to have it French registered, too much hassle and if you bend the rules you can keep the UK plates. I decided to go for it as we intend to be in Europe for quite a while, so let's get it done. Off we went to the Préfecture and after 4 visits, a visit to the Lille Cité Administrative, an Attestation de Residence from Monsieur le Maire of Wambrechies as to my residency on a péniche in his port, a 6 week delay due a missing line of the address, various telephone calls and having to sell my scooter formally to myself, we received a Carte Grise (registration document). The process was frustrating principally as we did not understand what was required. Now we've done it, it really is quite straight forward, problem is there is no information available or anyone to ask.

Picture of Scoots in his new livery. (Sorry Martyn)

J'AI PROFITÉ

We were required by the Maire to ask the Capitaine to fill Soraya up with water rather than do it ourselves as it involved a tap connection from the other side of the water course (15m). When he agreed to do it he asked how long it would take I said 2 to 3 hours. It takes about an hour per cubic metre from a hose pipe and we take on up to 3.6 cubic metres of water. On hearing it would be at least 2 hours he said 'J'ai profité' and promptly walked into the adjacent bar!