STUCK BETWEEN A ROCK AND A CURRENT

It's not all plain sailing navigating the French canals. Speeding down the Somme canal/river we decided that the combination of a 'very' twisty river, extremely narrow with overhanging trees and after torrential rain a huge current, this was not the time or the place for Soraya. 80 tonnes of steel drifting at quite a speed around blind corners does raise the heart rate with plastic boats potentially lurking behind the next overhanging tree. So a plan was decided upon to turn around at the next available point wide enough to spin Soraya's 24 metres.

In consulation with an eclusier whom we had got to know as he travels with you, well not acually with us but in a car going ahead to perpare the next lock or lifting bridge. We agreed to turn in front of the next lock which was slightly wider. We measured the canal (good old Disto) and at 25m it would be tight but doable. I asked the eclusier to flood the pound as much as possible to give us as much depth, he agreed. Round we went with a metre to spare noseing the bow in the recess between the sheet piling the stern spinning nicely then the stern hit a rock next to the bank. A bit of zest and around we carried on going then a sudden stop!! We were not going any further. Tried to go back, no luck, we were completely blocking the river.

La Somme est fermée

Fortunately there is always help on hand. A women walking passed said she would phone the mayor who was a friend. Call made, short wait with lots of conversation and Monsieur Le Maire arrived. No problem he'll organise a tractor. However it was just moving into the hallowed time zone of Sunday Lunch. We were told to do likewise and have a relaxed lunch 'in an unusual position on the Somme'!!

Just after 2pm a tractor and a 4 wheeled drive vehicle arrived. Rope attached to tractor and with the smallest of pulls we were out. Lots of hand shaking and bottles of red wine given to the assisting parties and we were turned. No stress. It's just great that no one was bothered no one expected to be paid, it's just part of life on the canal.

Reading between the lines they wanted to move us as they had a massive firework display that evening from the quay side just where we were and they did not want a large boat in the middle of the festivities.

One of many

THE CASE OF PIGS EARS AND VIRGIN SAUCE

It could have been 'Old Ladies in dressing gowns and Ducks' but more of that later. We decided to have a good meal so scoots to Albert for the Saturday morning market and wandering around into Les Halles found a great fish stall. Bought a beautiful Dover Sole and some Salicorne (Samphire), however he had other vegetation that we did not recognise. On enquiry we were told it was 'oreilles de cochons de la Baie de Somme' (pigs ears of The Somme Bay) or to give it another name Aster Maritime or it's botanical name Aster tripolium. Well what a treat I thought a new vegetable and couldn't let it pass by! So if you look at 'Le blog de Delices d'edith' you will get the recipe for L'épinard de mer à la creme or pigs ears in cream! One sells the other dosen't. But she is cheating by calling it spinach of the sea rather than pigs ears.

Pigs ears/L'épinard de mer/Aster maritime (or whatever you like to call it)

This together with the Dover Sole and the sauce vierge (virgin sauce) was sublime, well great and interesting meal. Yes the pigs ears were very good akin to crunchy spinach and quite salty. So it's onward to Amiens and stern gland fixed, so all good.

CHERRY PICKING ON LA SOMME

Many of us have images of the Somme from the First World War....Battle of the Somme, wet, muddy, trenches, damp, etc. But that was a long time ago. Today the Somme is very different. We arrived in Canal de la Somme a few days ago and it is very pretty and very green.  Haven't seen any mud yet but of course we didn't go to Glasto this year, although we did watch it in the middle of nowhere in France on Soraya. It was amazing! Think we'll have to go again next year!!  Back to La Somme....the canal is quite narrow and not very deep, so we have to keep fairly central to avoid grounding, no time to day-dream while steering.

La Somme

Lunch on La Somme

Along the Somme there are so many fruit trees. We found lots of cherry trees absolutely laden with cherries. Obviously the French birds don't like them, you'd never get a tree with that many ripe cherries in the UK.......so it was out with the ladder and start picking and we had fresh cherries, cherry jam, cherry pie.......and further along, pears and plum trees, but not ripe yet so we'll have to take our time. We've met lots of people doing the same as us. So many evenings spent drinking and chatting into the early hours. No one's in a hurry and when we leave a mooring we know we'll catch up with them somewhere along the river/canal in a few days time. It's a long village!!

My cherry picker

GAGGING FOR A GUINGUETTE

La guinguette used to be common sight at most ports, however, they seem to be fewer and fewer. It's at times like this, a beautiful summers evening that you're just gagging for a guinguette to quench that thirst with a drink or two. We are mooring at a lovely little port plaisance called Pont l'Évêque on the Canal Latéral à l'Oise close to Noyon. Very pretty but why no guingettes, restaurants or bars. In other places of similar ilk it would be crawling with Chelsea tractors with their loud India's and Giles's. Well that's not a bad thing I agree but nothing apart from a post office, a pharmacie and a very small boulangerie? There really is a demand for evening substanance and refreshment or even a bit of music, hence the guinguettes.

Port plaisance Pont l'Évêque, not a bar in sight

DARKNESS

11.20 pm. It's all darker from tomorrow!!!

Canal de Saint Quentin

BRICKS AND DOGS

At a cheese stall in Les Halles in Saint Quentin recently and we came across a cheese we had to buy as it sold by the catchy name of Brique du Nord (Brick of the North). It's hard to imagine what inspired the ad agency or the manufacturer to come up with this name. Perhaps they wanted to express the solid nature of the cheese and its dependency with its great lingering taste. Come on let's have more real solid names like this rather than these silly made up names like Pantysgawn (a Welsh soft goat cheese).

No it's not Pantysgawn it's Brique du Nord.

And dogs. Found a new friend in town, isn't he (well it could be she but doesn't look very feminine) cute! Not sure why the proprietors feel it is a good idea to have this adorable creature outside a designer women's clothes shop.

Red. Good name for the dog? or Brick of the North.

FISHERMEN

We see lots of fishermen everyday. Yes, fishermen, not fisher women. They sit there for hours, not catching anything, or if they do, it's so small that they throw it back in.  It must be very boring but maybe more interesting than being at home! However today we saw one catch a big fish.  It must have been at least 2 feet long.  They were very excited, put it in a bag and banged it on the head......dinner!!

And.....a couple of things.....why do they have to fish on a bend, in a narrow area, off a pontoon when you want to moor, in an awkward navigation area, all of these necessitating them to move their lines or get in the way when you approach?? The second thing......why do they have to go for a pee just as we're approaching on Soraya. They don't look for a bush (no...I mean the herbaceous type) or go behind a fence or car. They're not discreet at all. It happens so often and it's not just the fishermen! No I don't have any photos but I might start taking some!!

This one won't cause the same problems!

LACE CURTAINS AND TATTOOS

Bateliers and Batelières (Bargees, male and female) are quite a direct bunch. Here to do a job and make a profit and as such do not suffer fools lightly or to rephrase do not suffer plaisance (pleasure craft) who might be blocking/slowing their passage lightly. Actually they do have a legal right of way and first in at a lock even if they are last to arrive. They are a great and interesting crew with kids, family, dogs, cars, boats etc. all on board. Obviously they do a physical job with demanding hours going from sun up to sun down and with this physical lifestyle tattoos and certain physique are de rigueur, for both sexes. Fine. But what's with the lace curtains! Hard and demanding lifestyle, I can understand the tattoos, goes with the hard image, but lace curtains, no. Just don't see you can be the hard man/women and go back to the lace curtains/blinds. Virtually 100% of commercial barges have lace curtains/blinds/nets. This applies to the older 38+ metre tradition barges and to new 100 metre + barges, even the high tech fuel barges. It's all a bit strange. And that's not even mentioning the wife beaters.

Batelier we ran into, not literally

Batelière we had a few! glasses of red with

Traditional 38+ metre barge - laced up!

Modern 100 metre barge with gantry, crushed Audi A7 and lace curtains. Yes it is the one which had an accident in a previous post.

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)