Celebrations

L'Avenir ready to leave St Jean de Losne

Some days are deemed more auspicious than others. Yesterday, according to the Chinese calendar, was a lucky day. Today, according to our scenic views of Scotland calendar, is rather more important to us being the birthday of no fewer than 3 family members. Happy birthday to each of you in your different countries and time zones. Here in France, families are getting together for Mothers Day whilst in Britain Her Majesty is about to cruise along the Thames in some style to celebrate her diamond jubilee. One of the boats in our marina is obviously owned by a patriotic Brit as it is festooned with bright flags. And, our own contribution to the importance of the day? Our one hundredth blog post.

Some decisions have been made. We are to depart tomorrow - probably - depending on the weather. After a week of bazing hot sunshine the heavens opened in the middle of last night and we were woken by loud claps of thunder. Did you close everything up before you came to bed? Yeah, yeah. Turn over. Snore. Rain continues to batter down all night.

Some hours later, we get up and discover that the hatch on the cabin roof is wide open and our galley has spent the night doubling as a shower compartment with the taps at full blast. So much for congratulating ourselves a few days ago on having a bone-dry boat interior.

We've visited the chandlery and bought new charts and yet another fender (because you just can't have enough of those) and taken the bike trailer to the supermarket to load up with enough food supplies to last through any possible apocalypse (not sure I'll eat the tinned peas and carrots even then - you definitely can have enough of those). We haven't managed to organise mobile internet, as yet, but are hoping that we can, once again, come to an amicable arrangement with Monsieur Orange in the next week or so. So we'll be incommunicado for a little while after we leave here.

Destination? North to Strasbourg. Probably.