When you leave the bassin at Castelnaudary, you’re immediately at a set of 4 locks, so really straight into it. However, the massive difference with UK narrowboating I’ve done is that the lock gates and water flow is controlled by the dockmaster (l’eclusier, sometimes l’eclusière). So you just need to drive the boat in and loop a rope or two around the capstans so the boat is under control and can’t accidentally bash into the dock gates or anything. Fortunately, being only two operating the boat (at the moment) and occasionally needing to deal with tears for some reason, we’re going down all the way. Going down is easier as (so far) all the éclusiers have been fine helping us throw a rope down and get it round the capstans without anyone leaving the boat; if we were going uphill, this wouldn’t be possible, as throwing a line up a vertical trench to someone on the side would be beyond even Rowdy Yates (question: is/was Clint Eastwood good with a lasso? Something to check.)
So we got through the first batch in a messy sort of way, then were better the next few, and now, on day 2, we feel like dab freaking hands.
It was a bit on the chilly side when the wind blew, but warm whennthe sun was out…that changed once the sun went down and without mains power, the boat’s little 12v heater didn’t work long. It was cold. 5YO was absolutely fine in her room/berth/cabin/whatever. 2YO was in with us and her fidgeting from 4.30am kept letting the cold air in and was quite a nuisance.
Technicians have been today to make sure the heater works from battery power, but we’re on sweet sweet shore power tonight so we can go crazy. As we had to wait around for said technicians, we didn’t move far today, but ending up at Bram is fine. The snag with France, frankly, is Mondays. And Sunday afternoons – everything is closed! It might be (though I suspect not) different when in season, but most shops, bars, restaurants are proudly closed on Mondays. We did find a little supermarket at abpetrol station today, and a PMU (horse racing betting) bar open today, so can’t complain too grievously, I guess.
Kids are in their own bed, there’s every prospect of the boat being a comfortable temperature tonight, so to bed! Must write tomorrow about a) why I’m doing the Canal du Midi and b) the restorative powers of amoxicillin.
Timsformational 