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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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Don't Panic- June 2022, Dijon

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Lovely Dijon Once again I'm writing this blog months after events. We are now back home in Australia. For various reasons I couldn't summon up the necessary energy to write a blog 'in real time' but I did keep a diary which I'll use as an 'aide memoire' and some of what I'll write will just be the diary transcribed. We spent an excellent couple of weeks in Scotland visiting family before continuing to France. Covid and Brexit have both affected travel in negative ways. Everything is just 'more' although I suppose we should just be grateful we can do so at all. It's not so long ago that we weren't able to move more than 5km from our homes. 'Tuesday 21st June 2022 Dijon  Had a near panic attack at Charles de Gaulle airport.  Message 'access refuséé' flashed up on the electronic passport reader. An immigration official instantly materialised at my side. 'That's not good, ' he said sadly. A pause and then 'The Shru...
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