Bourgogne

18th September, 2009 (Tony)

Perhaps it is autumn after all. Today I'm wearing jeans for the first time in ages. Apart from occasionally dressing up to eat out; or to ride the motorbike, I haven't been out of shorts for the whole summer. And it hasn't rained properly for more than a month, not since the day we watched the Tour de France at Col de Schlucht in fact. The French farmers, like farmers everywhere, are in despair — this is a drought! After an unbelievably rain-free harvest, with all the grain now safely stashed in the silos, the only crop left in the fields is maize which won't be ready for several weeks. How the long hot summer will have affected this year's vintage we will hope to discover next week when we enter the vineyards of Burgundy. Last year the harvest began very late but I'll be surprised if they haven't begun picking by the time we get there. Not that we intend to help. It's too much like hard work, but we'll be keen to sample the bottled fruits of previous vintages...

For the past couple of weeks we have drifted, if not aimlessly then certainly nonchalantly, from quay to quay, pausing long enough to take in the ambience of whatever village is nearby whilst also carrying out a bit of work on Sable. We tired of Dole after eight days so set off down the canal towards its end at the Saône. Just four kilometres down we stopped a night at Choisey, a picture-perfect village. impeccably neat and tidy. For a few horrendous moments we thought the place lacked a boulangerie — sacré bleu, that's unforgivable. Then, two hundred metres up the hill from the church, hidden from sight across the main road to Dole, we discovered a gigantic commercial centre complete with hyper-supermarket, numerous other major outlets for furniture, shoes, cheap clothes etc, etc, and, of course, a delightful if somewhat grandiose boulangerie. Next morning it was Sally's turn to fetch the croissants and she had barely returned from her exhausting excursion when a mobile boulangerie van pulled up twenty metres from the boat and tooted. Alas, we had to turn him away. Our friends who stayed on for about a week reported that he never came back for the duration of their stay. So down another few kilometres to Tavaux-Cité. This town was obviously purposely built in the 1950's to accommodate the workforce employed at the nearby chemical factories that stretch for more than two kilometres alongside the canal. They comprise an amazing complex of what looks like a coal-fired electricity generating plant, an oil refinery, a gas works and a concrete batching plant; and for all I know they might well be all of those things, but I understand it is the biggest manufacturer of raw plastic in the world. Elsewhere, all around the globe, its product is turned into pvc and polyurethane commodities of every description imaginable. But I digress, back to the town where the streets are wide, tree-lined avenues. The houses are all the same — two storey, solidly-built, well designed, large semi-detached boxes. It's all so clinically neat and tidy. It's not French, especially the church which looks as if it was designed to adapt to all religious persuasions but possibly satisfies none. A sort of gothic, protestant, synagogue. There are sporting facilities, but not a bar or restaurant, or shop of any kind, anywhere. The townsfolk must have to hike almost two kilometres to the next village for supplies. Teenagers would go stir-crazy, though we didn't see any so maybe they've been sent to boarding school.

The quay at Tavaux was perfect, height-wise, to rub down the starboard side hull with wet-and-dry. Then another four kilometres down the quay at Abergement la Ronce was just right to rub down the port side. We continued on, out into the Saône and down to St Jean de Losne to try and organise a routine engine service for Sable which is a bit like waiting for your football team to make it into the grand final — ten days later it still hasn't happened, maybe next week, or next year... We spent five nights in St Jean de Losne and every evening a boat came into port with people we knew and every night became a late one with copious drinks and sociable banter and finally we said we've got to get out of here, we're running short of aspirin. So, back into the canal and up to Abergement to undercoat the starboard side, then next day on to Tavaux again to paint the port side, then with Sable looking a bit like Australia's second-biggest navy ship with her grey hull, up to Choisey, for a day's rest before another light sanding and applying the first top-coat to the port side, turn around, back to Tavaux to do the other side and complete the first top-coat. The following day, Sable proudly back to her original livery but without a name, we returned to St Jean de Losne where we waited in vain for the mechanic to arrive, this time without visitors. In a few days Sally is going to Rome for four nights to join her sister Myra. They will probably arrange to meet the Pope, meanwhile I'll still be waiting for an appointment with the mechanic. The overnight train leaves from Dijon so we've cruised up there and I'll finish the painting, final top coat, while she is away. I'm not sure I'm up to sign-writing, I may have to resort to self-adhesive vinyl lettering. The engine service is not urgent, it can be done in Roanne if necessary.

Dijon is a lovely city with plenty of things to see and do. But if I get bored, and I just may, I'll hop on a motorbike and take a run out to Gevry-Chambertin and/or Nuits St George to investigate the grape harvest and restock the cupboard. The basin here at Dijon is absolutely choked with weed which is an enormous pity as the task of getting rid of it is clearly beyond the resources of the VNF. The weed is an exotic species introduced from elsewhere (one theory is it's from South America and is a result of people emptying their fish tanks into canals) and is becoming a problem in many French waterways. It dies off in the winter and its wiry tentacles clog the locks. And it is spreading rapidly. Fortunately, Sable has an internal access shaft so I can clear the propeller when necessary without getting more than an arm wet. I pity the poor boaties who have to plunge beneath their boats to free the weed from their propellers. Worse still is when weeds clog the inlet for the engine's water cooling system. It's a tough job this boating life...