The first few days of October were wet and a bit cool but that soon changed and we have had some really hot sunny days with clear blue skies as we have travelled along the Canal de Nivernais. The sunlight shimmering through the autumnal colours of many varieties of trees has provided picturesque and spectacular scenery. It has been lovely to have time to take in the pleasure of the autumn season.

Our first mooring in any place of significance was Clamecy, arriving there 2^nd Oct. 05. The port was delightful and shops were near by. We stayed several days and learned something about the history of the place and the Canal de Nivernais which stretches over 174 kms and has a total of 120 locks. Originally the canal was used to float wood to Paris and appropriately there is a statue on one of the bridges in recognition of the work that was done, probably by many men over the years. We had a very tasty meal in an Auberge which used to be an old chapel. The surroundings felt special. On the place mats was a quotation which was something like "Paris would not be as Paris is now without the floaters of the wood."

Whilst at Clamecy we decided that the Tumbling Tomato plants and the flowers were past their best, the roof of the boat looked a bit bare once we had discarded them. However this was to change very soon afterwards.

The cool spell had focussed our minds on winter fuel and led us to make enquiries of the lock keeper at Clamecy about a coal merchant or where we could buy wood. The lock keeper did hunt out a telephone number of a coal merchant but he explained that it was 30 kms away and as we would want a relatively small amount the delivery charge would not make it worthwhile. We accepted his advice and set off that afternoon from Clamecy with our next challenge in mind, how to get anthracite or wood for the winter period. The next day we were passing through a lock and Diane was off the boat dealing with ropes. A van pulled up and three men walked very purposefully towards her. One of them happened to be a lock keeper who lived in the cottage beside the lock. He asked if it was us who had been looking for wood the previous day and pointed to his ample pile of wood next to his cottage. Before we knew it he had moved his tractor with an electric saw, checked what size logs we wanted and started work on sawing up the wood to the appropriate size, we have a small fire. The three men and Paul loaded up the wood in a wheelbarrow and everyone helped with the loading of the wood on the roof. There were easily three wheelbarrow loads. Diane was talking to the very pleasant woman lock keeper assuring her that the weight of the wood would not sink the boat! When Diane enquired of the male lockeeper how much we owed him he replied that we could give what we wanted. I think that we overpaid but the whole episode made us smile all afternoon.

On the afternoon of the 7^th Oct 05 we were not smiling. Ben fell on the front deck and could not get up. Fortunately we only had two locks to do which were close together before having the scope to moor. It felt as if we were in the wilderness but with the help of a lock keeper and ‘Orange’ we managed to arrange for a vet to come to us and he was there in less than an hour. He diagnosed that Ben had suffered a stroke and was paralysed on his right side. Due to his age (16 years last June) I really didn’t think that the vet would recommend treatment but he did. The morning of the 9th Oct Ben got himself up and made rapid progress from then on. He is alert, looking for his walks, eating from his bowl unaided and loving every bit of attention that anyone will give him. No change there.

Once we knew that Ben was on the mend we recommenced our journey on the afternoon of the 12^th October to climb a flight of 16 locks, very close to each other, and to pass through three tunnels to the summit. We experienced another one of those ‘adrenaline moments’ which lasted for the first seven locks. There were two lock keepers working together and they seemed to be in a hurry, opening sluices before we had chance to rope up properly. No matter what we said we just couldn’t persuade them to work differently. We really wondered if we were going to reach the summit with the boat and us unscathed. With a huge sigh of relief we had a different lock per for the eighth and subsequent locks. His style was very different, he took his time with every movement and we had chance to enjoy the scenery and locking.

 

We commenced the descent of locks from the summit at Baye to Chatillon -en-Bazois where we had decided to spend a chunk of time as we did not have to rush to arrive at the winter mooring. It was also a point where we thought it would be reasonable for Margaret and Alan (good friends) to locate us on their journey during their drive from Italy to England. We had a lovely few hours together and very much enjoyed catching up on news. Chatillon proved to be a good mooring with pleasant surroundings. We were able to contact a veterinary surgery to arrange the next stage of Bens treatment and so all went according to plan.

At the moment we are at Cercy-la-Tour with good shops a couple of minutes walk away. We will be moving on tomorrow (26^th) but just for a couple of hours or so which will leave us with one lock and a few kms to the winter mooring where we are expected on the 27^th Oct. 05. We will actually have an address, at least until mid March 06 and then we will become nomadic once again. However, there is plenty of time to explore Decize and surrounding areas and to catch up with French friends who live relatively near. Although we have seen the mooring we didn’t visit the town and so next month we will be able to tell you about our impressions of Decize and our efforts to organise ourselves for our very first winter living on the boat.