The Journey -
Rosy is Still in Decize

We're still here in Decize, and will be for a few more days.  I asked at the tourist office if I could pay for the electricity, but the offer was declined.  I've had a quiet time, doing a bit of painting on Rosy's hull, and a bit of reading.  I cycled over to the next lock that we have to go through - locking up from the River Loire to the Canal du Centre.  It's quite a deep lock.  It's automatic, and I wanted to see the strength of the in-flowing water.  It seems very benign, and there are convenient rising bollards.  Anna came through on her barge whilst I was there, and I hovered about until she had moored and had coffee with her and her crew.

From where Rosy is, to get to the lock, we have to go under a road bridge, and then cross to the other side of the river.  The charts all show that the deep channel is close to the left-hand bank.  The road bridge has signs on it showing that the channel is at the left-hand end.  As I was cycling across the bridge, I was surprised to see a boat, going downstream, but right over near the right-hand bank.  Aground.  With engine going full ahead (hence making them even further aground) and then waving at me.  What to do?

Go back and start Rosy and bring her round and then pull them off?  But they were so far over towards the right bank that Rosy wouldn't get anywhere near them?

Go down close to them and try to talk sense to them - e.g. try reverse, and try getting the stern into deeper water?  But they were some way away from the bank, and were flying the French flag, so our communications could have been tricky.

Go and tell some-one else?  Who?

So I did nothing.  Except hope that another boat would be along soon to help them.

I was cycling back two hours later, and they weren't there and there was no wreckage or police presence, so I guess all was OK.  Though I still feel a bit guilty.

I found an 'en vrac' wine shop in Decize, where wine is sold out of the barrel, by the litre.  I'm stocked with a nice chewy Merlot.

As that is all the boating news, I thought that I'd take this opportunity to address a question which seems to have been bothering quite a few recently - why there are so few ducks playing tennis, or indeed, playing any game requiring hand-eye co-ordination - or, in the case of a duck, beak-eye co-ordination.

The other day, whilst I was feeding the ducks the remains of yesterday's baguette, I carried out some experiments, and discovered that ducks appear to have zero beak-eye co-ordination.  I lobbed bread to them, and not a single piece was caught in flight.  The ducks would watch each piece of bread, and then grab it after it landed on the water.  I even got one piece of bread to bounce off a duck's beak, but it made no effort to catch it.

Yesterday (Saturday) and today were festival days in Decize, with some sort of agricultural show taking place.  Yesterday we were infested by large, docile horses, being shouted at by dodgy looking gents who (in view of all the horse poo lying around) were wearing surprisingly natty suits.  Some of these gents were cracking whips.

I woke up today to noises that sounded like the early stages of warming up the bag-pipes, but it was just the prize bulls objecting to being off-loaded into the exhibition ring.

Toodle pip!!

Bill