UPDATE - 16th May 2007

 

The end of April saw us getting ready to leave St. Jean de Losne and our winter berth. But just before we were due to leave, we had major problems with our laptop and had to restore it to its original state with a reinstallation of Microsoft Windows.

This meant that we lost some of our data, in particular photos, and needed to beg and borrow some photos for this update.
It also meant that we lost about 20 e-mail addresses so if you haven't heard from us in a while can you please send us a quick message to make sure that we have your address (that will teach us not to back up our data to disks often enough!!!)

 

Earlier on in April, Pamela's sister Pat and their niece Maxine came over for a visit and we were all blessed with some great weather. But we lost the 100 plus photos that were taken due to our computer problem. Fortunately copies are currently on a memory stick in Lancashire so when we have retrieved them we will do a special update covering their visit.

For the moment though, thanks to Val of DILLYKIM, here is a photo of us returning from our epic voyage (of 4 kilometres) during their visit.

 

RETURNING FROM THE QUAY NATIONAL

 

It's not often that you get a picture of your own boat on the move, so many thanks to Val for that.

 

We're not sure whether our friend Yvetta (from the boat AVESOL II) finds this next picture flattering, so that's a good reason in itself for its inclusion.

 

YVETTA DISTORTED

 

During Pat and Maxine's visit, someone threw down a challenge to meet at the boules area one afternoon, which was an opportunity to introduce our niece Maxine to the game of Petanque. Not wanting to sound know alls, but the balls are called Boules, the game is called Petanque and the small jack (as it would be called in England), that is the thing you aim at, is called a cochonnette (piglet). So on with the game and some of the crowd watching or waiting to play were…

 

USCHI, PAT AND DAVID

PAMELA TO PLAY

 

As these events usually happen at very short notice, it's not always possible to finish what you were doing, for example, cutting your hair.
As you can see from this next photo, things can only get better (as Tony Blair used to say). Eat your heart out David Beckham !

 

HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW

 

The next picture is one of our friends Said and Yvetta on their boat AVESOL II. They were just leaving the Bourgogne canal and entering the river Saône at St. Jean de Losne.

AVE SOL II

 

Our neighbours Gaby and Annie's son Jimmy celebrated his birthday on 14th April and so we popped in with a birthday card when he had finished work for the day. Well that was the general idea. But we ended up staying all evening and, with other friends from the marina, celebrated Jimmy's birthday in style.

 

JEAN PIERRE AND NADIA TOASTING JIMMY

 

Jimmy took it all in his stride and in the next photo can be seen trying on one of his birthday presents.

 

JIMMY TRYING IT ON

 

Annie worked wonders feeding everyone and Gaby made sure that no one went home thirsty.

 

BAR DE L'ALLIANCE

 

The night went on with everyone enjoying Jimmy's day. But Gaby was concerned that some of us might be in need of help getting back to our boats safely (can't imagine why!). So as you can see in the next couple of photos, he dug out some life jackets to be on the safe side.

 

SAFETY FIRST

BOTTOMS UP

 

Our other neighbour on pontoon D (the party pontoon) is Uschi and of course she was also at Jimmy's celebration together with her son Bjorn who was paying her a visit.

 

BJORN AND USCHI

 

Time moves on as they say and John and Pat who we cruised with for a while last year, returned to their narrowboat HODDY DOD. Pat felt a trip to IKEA coming on so we went for a spot of retail therapy. Mister IKEA is apparently the 4th richest man in the world so we thought that we should help to keep him up there by spending a few euros (spot the digital alteration).

 

A GOOD IDEA

 

Inside IKEA and an opportunity for David to take a very interesting photo in the children's section.

THE RAT RUN

 

Anyone who has visited us out here, or who is a regular visitor to our website, will already know that we have a favourite "Cave" in Nuits St. Georges where we buy most of our red wine. It is called the Caveau des Fleurieres and as well as selling very good, high quality wines, also sells red wine in a box at a very reasonable price. We highly recommend both the wine and the Cave and the next photo shows a very popular view from one of their windows - everyone who visits there has their photo taken by this window.

OUR FAVOURITE WINDOW

 

Swiftly on now to our friends Jean-Pierre and Nadia, who live aboard a boat called NEMO with their daughter Miriam and their 2 dogs. They asked if we would take them to Nuits Saint Georges and show them where we buy our vin rouge. So off we all went!

It was a wonderful day out with some lovely people and an excellent lunch. We really have been very fortunate this year in meeting so many new French friends. It's just a pity that our French isn't coming on a bit faster, but these things can't be rushed.

 

JEAN-PIERRE AND NADIA

TIME FOR LUNCH

Jeff, who we met up with in Alicante earlier in the year, has now returned to St. Jean de Losne and to his boat MAGDALENA, which is up for sale as Jeff thinks a smaller vessel would suit him better. Jeff is another boater who helped us through the winter period as he did his rounds and the next photo is of him enjoying a little relaxation on our back deck.

 

RELAXEZ VOUS

 

As we said in the last update, our cruising plans this year are for some smaller trips using St. Jean de Losne as a base and we are currently on the first of these up the Canal de Bourgogne through Dijon to a place called Vandenesse en Auxois.

 

En route to Vandenesse the canal passes through a place called Pont D'Ouche (Bridge over the River Ouche) and here we found an extremely nice spot called Chez Bryony run by a very friendly British lady called (what else?) Bryony. A great spot to stop if you haven't had proper chips for a while - ecstasy !!!!!. We can highly recommend them!

 

CHEZ BRYONY

 

Vandenesse is the last village before the tunnel at the top of the canal and is the place to stop if you want to visit one of the most beautiful sights in this region - Chateauneuf en Auxois. As you can see from the next photo of us going through one of the last locks before Vandenesse, it really is very pretty indeed.

 

CHATEAUNEUF EN AUXOIS

 

Just for information by the way, the literal translation of Chateauneuf is New Castle - not quite the same as the English one is it !

 

Well, time to finish for this update with some good news and some bad.

 

The good news, as you will see from our last photo, is a wedding. It was the grand daughter of a good friend, Donald, who David worked with for many years. Donald's widow Margaret hadn't been too well recently so it must have been wonderful for her to be well enough to attend the wedding in New Zealand.

 

RACHEL AND JOE

 

The bad news is that sadly, Margaret has recently passed away, as has the brother of our friend Val.

So our thoughts, sympathies and best wishes go to all concerned. We shall be thinking of you.

 

Bye for now

 

David and Pamela
(& King Gromit)

 

Go to March 2007 update

 

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