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Cracks Appearing

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        The next 10 days were spent tied up at the marina in St Jean de Losne trying to restore our poor boat to some semblance of her former self. 3 winters and 2 hot summers of total neglect (thanks to Australia's stringent Covid lockdowns) had not been kind to her.  Although still quite early in the boating season water restrictions were already in place and boat washing with hoses banned. So, there was nothing for it but fill the buckets, get down on hands and knees and scrub. Hard work at any time but even more so in the heat; clear skies every day and temperatures in the high 30s. As the filth disappeared the true state of the bodywork was revealed and it was a thoroughly depressing sight; flaking paint, bleeding rust patches, peeling varnish. The more we cleaned the more it became apparent that l'Avenir was going to need a complete repaint. 
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Shipshape

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Sunset at St Jean de Losne At first sight things didn't look too bad. We had been excited to be back and find our boat still safely tied up and afloat and were just anxious to get aboard. The main problem I had really noticed as I hauled myself and bags onto the deck was that there wasn't a scrap of varnish left on the handrails. It's always a concern when opening up  the boat after an extended period away, the main one being is it going to be dry inside?  L'Avenir had never let us down in the almost 15 years we had owned her and this year this year was no different. Opening up the door was always an instant step back in time. Usually that was only a period of 6 months or so but this time (thanks to Covid) it had been more than 2 and a half years. Thanfully everything was exactly as we had left it. We spent that first day getting unpacked and shipshape inside; de-winterising, water on, gas on, starting up the engines etc. All went well. I went over to the supermarket fo...
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Back Onboard - Again

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  'Wednesday  22nd June 2022  St Jean de Losne, Bourgogne At last! We are here once again. 2 years and 8 months since we left. It's been a hard couple of years for all of us but I don't want to think about that at the moment. This is about being back on our boat. Back to life...' We decided to splash out and take a taxi from Dijon to St Jean which brightened the day of the lead driver on the rank outside the station; cue lots of backslapping, high fives and laughter with the other 2 drivers. As we'd asked for an estimate first I did wonder if we'd agreed to something outrageous but 70 euros seemed fair enough. Maybe we were just getting his day off to a good start.  First up, though, we headed to the Free shop in Dijon to get ourselves a phone sim. We'd used Free previously as they offered a really generous internet allowance. Very easy to set up- you just buy a sim through one of their automatic dispensers. Not quite so easy (but not impossible) to complete...
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