Bike thief!
31 October 2011 | Chalons sur Marne
Fantastic weather here, 24 deg here today. Honest.
Hiya all,
After leaving Epernay at about 4pm, we headed for Mareuil overnight which was another really beautiful little village with free mooring on pontoons. The next day the weAther was fantastic, breakfast on deck, blu skies and sunny all day. We left about noon and stopped at two tiny villages on the way, but there are never any people about! What do they do all day! It is like the village in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang where no one is in the streets. The shops were closed, shutters on houses closed, no traffic. .I quite expected the child catcher to come round the corner any minute in his wagon! But these tiny deserted villages have many many champagne houses!
In one village the only sign of life was two Pompiers coming out of the fire
station for a cigarette, so I decided to be brave and try and strike up a
conversation. "bonjour, ou est Le supermarche?". This drew blank looks all
round. "marchez?". He thought I meant going for a walk..... Obviously didn't
understand the Super part of the word. So then I tried to ask if there was
anywhere to eat in the village. This also drew a blank. So I told them their village was tres jolie Maisie tres petite, and left them to laugh at the stupid
English woman who can't speak French proper.
Another milestone this week is that we managed to get through all the locks we needed to before the big winter closure of part of the canal system, or Les
Chomages, as they call it. Although we still have millions of locks en route,
none of them will be closed, the important ones are all behind us now, some
can take our time from now on, and go even slower than 5 knots an hour.....
I've been a bit grumpy for the last couple of days, apologies to my long
suffering husband, a bit homesick I think. I am missing having radio 2 on all day in the background, no english tv, no papers or magazines, virtually no
internet, no English people to talk to. My French isn't good enough to strike up
a conversation with the locals. I need to get used to this, it's only going to get
worse, the more rural it gets!
Last night at about 945pm after supper when we were all cozy with the fire on, we heard a noise like someone was climbing over the guard rails on deck. Tim opened the hatch to see what was happening, and a scumbag revolting lowlife
French guy was trying to steal our little folding bike! When he saw Tim he ran
away but first he threw the bike into the canal! I didn't sleep well that night as
I thought he would come back and untie our mooring ropes or try to get on
board again.... But he didn't, and my clever husband managed to fish the bike
out of the canal with the boat hook.
No more time left, no pictures this time, more news soon. The weather here has been amazing all week, around 24 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, perfect!
Love from me xx