My folks were picked up by taxi at 10am tobe returned to the comfort of the Trois Couronnes hotel before heading home. We ventured on to Homps. While up to now we’ve done a pretty good job with all the locks, the first one today was a pig’s breakfast. We had to wait for it to fill up, no problem there and I pulled over to one side. The wind had picked up quite a bit, and that pushed us to the side wherr I’d failed to appreciate the “no mooring” sign. Fine – we weren’t mooring up anyway. However, the subtext of that sign was “because you’ll get stuck”. Which we did – the lock gates opened and we had to spend 5 minutes jiggling around with the controls, with Aurélie adding a bit of elbow grease with the broom to nudge us free. By then, 2YO was already crying, I was a bit twitchy and aforementioned wind wasn’t helping either, so at one point I had the boat touching both sides of the lock. This is not acceptable. The lock-keeper was unimpressed, but non-judgmental.
The other mishap was inevitably marine toilet related, and fortunately that was resolved without a technician visit, but no further details will be forthcoming.
Homps is a Le Boat place, and while most of the restaurants near the water were closed, Le Foudre a couple of minutes further away served up a pleasant lunch and afterwards we declared it was time for a nap for half the crew while 5YO watched Aladdin and I tried to make headway with John Julius Norwich’s A History of France. Post-nap, a bit of cruising and a handful of locks (much more capably handled, this time) and we arrived at Argens-Minervois. This has a bay off the canal itself where a Locaboat Holidays base is located. 20 euros for the night (this seems to be the going rate). While apparently there is “rien” in the main centre, the girls were happy to see a play area to mess around in, and also a pizzeria “La Terrasse du Port” which opened at 6.30pm, meaning dinner off the boat was possible. Huzzah! Pizzas were good and plentiful amd their music playlist was right up my street – The Avalanches, the Beatles, Gil Scott Heron and a funky cover of that “Remember Me” track from the 90s.
I love the photo below as it looks like that’s a picture on the wall. It isn’t – it’s a window. :o)
Timsformational 