We duly travelled from Meaux to Lagny in one day and moored in our usual place at the pontoon, and all the locals welcomed us back to their town. Everyone was so pleased to see us it almost felt like going home...not good when you spend your life moving about so much, it doesn't do to put down roots!!
On the saturday we were very pleased to see our old friends from last year on their boat 'Renaissance' and we spent the evening having a good chat whilst we demolished a big bowl of chilli and several bottles of wine! I made my final visit to the hospital, where they gave me all my xrays and scans to take to my UK hospital in september. Thank goodness my blood seems to have thinned suitably and I must now take the medecines until December.
Weekends in Lagny are all for the children, we were amused to see the surfing machine which was well used by all the young boys, some successful, some not so.......
I would have loved to have given my grandaughters a ride on the carousel, they would have loved it!
We finally left Lagny on the 29th August and headed back up the Marne towards Paris. The views were lovely and some of the houses were just out of this world! If you look carefully at this picture you can see two lads who plunged into the icy water just after I took this photo!
We moored for two nights at Neuilly sur Marne as John had to do some upkeep on the batteries but we left yesterday morning to continue up the Marne. This picture is taken inside St Maur Tunnel, just as we were nearing the end!
Then the dreaded St Maur lock which is very large and very deep! I dreamt about this the night before and was dreading doing it as I had to swap the rope over as we went down inside the lock, this requires some skill and I get worried when I have to do it!
This is my view of the deep lock from halfway down and you can just see the bollard that I have to swap the ropes from, like I said it gives me nightmares!!!
The smallish lock between the Marne and the Seine was nothing but when we came out of it we were greeted by this monstrous container ship waiting to go in, Im so glad John does the driving I would have gone to peices!!!
The Seine is so big it almost feels like open water in places!
We knew we were near to the airport in paris as we kept getting 'buzzed' by planes coming in to land.
We were unable to find anywhere to moor on the Seine and limped on from lock to lock until eventually after 9 and a half hours travelling we finally found space for us that wasnt going to bash us up on concrete walls. We settled in and I started to cook supper when these two huge barges appeared and asked us to move so they could moor together and load this car on to one of them. We very tiredly complied but we were almost too tired to eat our fish fingers and chips !!!
Glad your blood is OK now, Hope you have an uneventful trip back to your winter mooring.
RépondreSupprimerHello John, Lissie and Patrice,
RépondreSupprimerjust by coïncidence I found your blog, and enjoyed reading your travel stories.
Of course, I knew nothing of all the nasty health issues of Lissie + her accident, but I'm very happy for you that everything is under control now.
Just one tiny little remark that doesn't make a scrap of difference to your nicely written blog, when you write about going UP the Marne From Lagny to Paris, you probably wanted to say:"Going North", as for people on the river, you'll go DOWN the Marne on your way to Paris.
All the best to the three of you, and I hope the hospital in the UK will be happy with Lissies condition.
Cheers,
Peter.