SOISSONS EN SC'AISNE FESTIVAL

Delayed somewhat by a great 2 day festival in Soissons and today when we're ready to leave, engine running, just casting off, when a guy came running up staying 'interdit, interdit'. There was a swimming race with dozens of nageurs et plongeurs (swimmers and divers) in the water upstream round the corner so moving anywhere was interdit!! Oh well, another day here, c'est la vie. The good news was that he invited us for aperatives before we left. It was Sunday lunchtime afterall!

The festival was great fun and had all sorts of exciting things going on.......from astronomy, looking at sunspots, to a Spiegeltent which reminded us of the festival in Bath. Great music, boat and bus theatres, competitions, local produce for sale.....

Looking at sun spots.

Spiegeltent with inhabitant!

VEG CHEESE AND MARGARET

Marché day in Soissons and lots to be had! Biggest cabbages we have ever seen, and nice carrots.

Carottes, navets et radis.

For those amongst us that have a cheese stomach I found a new cheese. Yes it's chèvre, I thought it was about time we had a new cheese - Le Catal.

Le Catal.

More importantly Margaret was happy to find a small garden next to the cathedral. 'Jardin du Haricot', yes it's a Soissons thing apparently the local variety of beans saved the population from starvation in one of the many famines. Tried a jar of 'Haricot de Soissons, Apéritif au piment d'Espelette' superb. Makes a change from cheese turtles, but more about them later.

Vegetable appreciation society.

BRUME AND COOL TREES

Woke up the other morning and couldn't see the other side of L'Ainse (the canal we are on at the moment). It was all brume (mist). What is this, is winter looking in our direction?

A little later in the morning! Oh la la.

It all turned OK as we had a glorious day once the mist had burnt off. However in the local bar, that's a surprise, later in the day and they are obviously preparing for hivernage (winter) or perhaps the trees are wimps as the trunks are all wrapped in knitted stockings.

Set for winter

Not so sure about the knitted fruit, but we are in Soissons so as one of the oldest towns in France anything goes.

BOATING 'LE BRICK'

I know you are all gagging to get involved with adventure sur La Fluviale. I think I've found the entry level model, in case you are thinking of starting small.

It does have a life buoy and a satellite dish and yes a door, all in one aesthetically pleasing design!

Inside there are salons, ensuite bedrooms, cinema rooms (no don't be so ridiculous) and kitchens. Oh la la, may be not.

EXCHANGE RATES AND EMPERORS

It had to happen. Scotland voted to stay in the UK and exchange rates Sterling to Euro a bit more favourable so property in France cheaper. Saw this little place that needs lick of paint but otherwise well together.

Got the keys so in we go!

Living Room, needs lots of furniture, not sure about the chandeliers

My Bedroom 

Margaret's Bedroom, not sure which I prefer.

Lots of old furniture that needs changing. It also has a great garden and forest of ~32,000 hectares. Previous occupants Louis XV and XVI then the revolution followed by being gutted. Re-found by Napoleon I, bit of work done for the First Empire make over then a bit later for the Second Empire make over. 

Don't know why Compèigne is not on the tourist route it's amazing used to be one of the 3 royal residences along with Versailles, Fontainebleau. Well enough of that, great place to cycle with 1000+km of routes to cycle and walk.  Off to Reims, did I hear a loud pop!!

LA CUEILLETTE

We're back after the summer and have left the Somme, travelling south, but before we left we found La Cueillette de Cappy, an amazing pick you own.

La Cueillette

Not just fruit but any fruit and veg you can imagine.....from peppers, aubergines to potatoes, leek, onions, beans to raspberries, strawberries etc. etc. I've never seen such a huge 'vegetable garden'!! I could have stayed there for hours, just picking.......but there's only so much you can eat!

Picking under way.

We're now on our way to Reims, via Compiègne and Pont L'Évêque where we've stayed before. (Post: Gagging for a Guinguette). There is actually one bar by the canal which does great pizzas. 

Great pizza (and wine).

We're having beautiful weather. For the benefit of ze Parisians we really are on the boat and should be in Reims in a few days time, looking for Bouzy and Dizy!! Which one comes first?? Do come and visit!

AUTOMNE AND SWIMMING

Yes we are back and hopefully many interesting and opinionated posts. There still are ' Net curtains' and 'Old Ladies and Ducks' to be discussed, more of that later. Surely stern glands and rope wrapped propellers are much more interesting? We should put it to the vote. (If anyone is out there as the silence is deafening). Moving on we have had a problem with discarded rope. Twice recently this has caused huge navigation problems as a result of picking up rope. This has caused the 'Stern Gland' (you need to look at previous blog comment to laugh at the 'lost in translation' aspect of a 'stern gland') to be bound, vibrated and sucked dry when all the time all it needed is a little lubrication from the waters of the canal.

As I don't have a picture of myself pulling out rope the next best thing will do, it's a guy looking pissed off in the Somme on a bad T shirt day. Sculpture much modified by weekly changes of clothes provided by the youth of Amiens, originally by Stephan Balkenhol entitled 'L'Homme sur sa bouée'

Bad T Shirt Day (Great restaurants behind)

It looks like I will be definitely going swimming tomorrow to extract more rope from the propeller and the stern gland!

Next Day. Lovely day for a swim, actually standing on our submerged gangplank as the water was 3+ metres deep.

This is it!! The bastard!!

PETIT TRAIN DE LA HAUTE SOMME

For the train buffs this is a must adjacent to the Somme. The "Petit train de la Haute Somme" it is the last remaining section of a large military network built in the First World War primarily by the British near Froissy. Briefly the line was built to take amongst other things ammunition to the front line. The trains are primarily steam power with few old diesels for the uphill section. The line is facinating going along the valley then up the valley side to the wheat field on top in a zigzag with lots of points changing rather than a slow incline. 

Le Petit Train

A chilled Margaret sur le train

LES PASSERELLES

Amiens city of fun, restaurants, Jules Verne, a huge cathedral (Notre-Dame d'Amiens) and les passerelles in les hortillonnages.

Les hortillonnages are an area of traditionally market gardens supplying the needs of Amiens and its huge, approximately 300 hectares dissected by 65km of canals (very small canals certainly not big enough for Soraya). There are many market gardens producing fresh produce for Amiens and increasingly private pleasure gardens. Some are derelict, most are amazing. A maze of paths and canals connects all together. This is where the 'passerelles' come in. They are small pedestrian bridges over the tiny canals allowing access to the gardens but not impeding the use of the canal.

Artistic

There are dozens of them in a miriad of styles. The only commonality is the clearance below to allow the tradition gondola type boats to bring the produce out.

Brutal

Mrs Miggins

Good news for the artistic boaters who want to visit les hortillonnages is "Art, villes & paysage, Hortillonnages Amiens" in the summer. This is an arts trail around the hortillonnages, L'île aux fagots et l'île Robinson by foot and by small electric boats. It's great fun navigating around the miriad of tiny canals and lakes finding the mooring for a particular sculpture, installation or contemporary garden design, finding and viewing the installation then off to the next piece and of course a picnic on the water.  Dozens of installations. One of our favourite (however not very photogenic) was a woodland with 60 cookoo clocks hidden up in the trees. They were motion activated so as you walked around the clock would be triggered and the traditional cookoo sung out. Possibly not the most 'artistic' piece, but that's another subject, however it was great fun and somehow quite magical. Another piece was this large floating hollow white box of tape that you could navigate through quite bazaar.

Navigating

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