Heading Home (Maybe....We Hope!)

Once we left Compiegne we headed back along the Oise River towards the Seine, to follow it to the Yonne and Simon Evans' boatyard in Migennes, where Anja will again spend the winter months. The early part of September has been cold and damp, an early taste of autumn, but the second part of the month has again become sunny and mild, the sort of weather we had experienced previously at this time of year.

Our return trip is not straightforward as there is a scheduled closure of several locks on the Upper Seine and on the Yonne, which we must pass to get back to Migennes. They re- open on September 30th at 6am which allows us four days to make the sprint before we need to leave for our plane. We will have 140 kilometres and 26 locks to negotiate during daylight hours, and will be competing with the built- up commercial traffic which will also be keen to get going after a four week closure on the Seine and 6 weeks on the Yonne. The Seine locks are mostly duplicated so can pass a large number of boats through in a day. The Yonne is much slower and the locks are older and hard to negotiate.  

The Waterways authority (vnf) publishes a summary each week to inform users of the state of the waterways. On Friday the summary mentioned that there were some problems with gates on the first closed lock, Coudray, and therefore "perturbations" would continue for another twelve days, though the rest of the work is going  well. David emailed today for clarification of the situation and we were relieved to find that one of the two locks will be available. So as long as we can get through that lock despite all the traffic built up, remembering that commercial traffic always has priority, we should both be on our plane on Friday October 4th.

With time to spare we visited towns along the way previously missed, including Pontoise, an ancient Royal town. We planned to spend some days at Andresy where we had enjoyed a relaxed time earlier in the year, but on arrival found that  massive riverfront renovations are taking place. We have so far survived the dust and noise, the most impressive being the thumping of a pile driver about 50 metres away. It broke down this afternoon but no doubt will be back in action tomorrow. The train goes straight from Andresy to Paris so we fitted in a visit to the Musee d'Orsay particularly to see the Impressionist collection.

 
High above Pontoise (view from the Citadel walls)

The citizens of Andresy are not very happy with the works. Firstly, a large number of beautiful trees have been cut down. The town said that only some diseased trees were to be cut down but now it appears that all of them have been removed to make way for massive roadbuilding activity. There is no picture of what it will finally be like but does not look very good so far. There are many posters about the "assassination of our town" and "vote them out of office at the elections next March". COincidentally, the works are due to be completed in March. The local shopkeepers are struggling with all the mess and difficulty for customers to move around. Each evening and particularly on the weekend, local people "rearrange" barriers and signs to make life easier. The workers put them back in place this morning after a weekend of "rearranging". It is very interesting to watch from the water.

Meanwhile we are getting through all the large and small tasks before we leave the boat. The better weather makes it easier to dry the clothes, bedding and cushion covers and to allow David to touch up with paint those areas which are showing signs of wear. One sad task is to remove our flowers, which won't survive winter without us. In Andresy the planter boxes by the river are empty because of the building work, so we transplanted our blooming geraniums there to give them a last chance to be enjoyed.

Our Geranium donation to the Ville d'Andresy

We prefer to have a few days at the quay at Migennes to finish off such tasks as oil changes, but this year there will be no such luxury and David will have to do it en route. So our fingers are crossed but there is nothing we can do until Monday morning next, except to get ourselves into position at the start line and make sure the engine is functioning smoothly.

Best Regards,

Penny and Dave