La Belle France

Well we're here at long last! We've been following the River Meuse through Belgium and now into France and it's been absolutely beautiful scenery wise. High limestone cliffs and thick forests. Quite a change from Holland. Not the only change though. There's the language - here no-one speaks english and for boaties there's the all important question of locks.
Now we are not novices as far as locks go. We've been all over England, Holland and a bit of Belgium but if we've learnt one thing, it's you know nothing, and there is some lock designer out there who's come up with something to confuse you.
On entering France we were given a little yellow box and a leaflet on how to work the 'automatic locks.' The lock keeper presented it to me with a sad expression and said, in French,' it sometimes does not work'. Understatement. Sometimes being the redundant word. But, there's always the little white van with the helpful lock keeper who arrives - eventuallly - to sort everything out.
Now, what I want to know - again - why are the bollards so far away that you can't get on to them?
Why are they spaced so randomly that if you have to share the lock you cannot moor up away from the person next to you. Basically, why isn't it easy.....?

In Dinant - inventor of saxophone looking for a friend