If there’s one thing Roy hates – and I think I’m justified in saying that there are quite a few such things – it’s having to wait until I’ve photographed his food before he can eat it. (You can actually hear teeth grinding.) This selection of photos, taken over the past few days, reflects the five different stages of grief – progressing from denial, to anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance.
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
We wandered around quite extensively today, visiting both the gorgeous 16th-century Notre Dame en Vaux, and the mainly 13th-century St Etienne cathedral, whose builders incredibly dispensed with walls in favour of acres of stained glass window. The market was closed, unfortunately.
In one of the nearby squares, we lunched alfresco at people-watching spot Le Comptoir Licorne: a €12.50 set consisting of a vlammekuech (a thin, pizza-like base topped with cream, white cheese and either savoury or sweet additions), a drink and a delicious crème caramel.
After nearly four months in England, it’s time to head to France for a 10-day driving holiday – staying at interesting little hotels, speaking the language as best we can, and checking out a couple of rivers, canals and locks in advance of Summer 2017. Testing the waters, so to speak.
In an era where travel has become an everyday sort of thing for so many people, there’s been a rise in special-focus travel: healthy holidays, like a wellness workshop in Warsaw; giving-back-to-your-fellow-man getaways, such as house-building in Cambodia; or culinary escapes, like cooking classes in Katmandu. Our current visit to France is even more niche – we’re seeking out waterways!
Back again at Henley for the annual Piper rally – our last expedition on Karanja before closing her up for the winter and heading south (like migratory geese) – we moored up opposite picturesque Temple Island, at the end of a row of 11 Piper Dutch barges.
The idea of this annual UK event – another rally is held in France, at Saint Jean de Losne – is for prospective clients to come along, see examples of the finished product, traipse around them and talk to their happy owners about their experiences.
Morag Frew, our neighbour and the boss lady of the Boaters Bar at Thames & Kennet Marina, not only raved about the West End show, Kinky Boots, but had been to see it three times! So I went online to book a couple of Wednesday matinee tickets; it would be our last trip into London before heading to France next week.
Life on a boat is not all champagne and roses. When your lovely new bath won’t empty – and neither will the basins, nor the kitchen sink – it can only be one thing: a problem with the grey-water tank.
Last Sunday, Roy’s sister Lyndsay Clemmow and her husband, John, brought their mother, Leila Titchmarsh (93), to have lunch with us on Karanja. Marianne and Phil came down from Welford-on-Avon, too.
Though we’d been keeping Leila up-to-date with our barging exploits and shown her all the photos, it’s never the same as actually seeing it for yourself, is it? In the end, though we’d been unsure about how difficult boarding the boat might be, it was no problem.
The weather could have been warmer, but it was good enough to allow for a short cruise up and down the Thames.
Not only did Leila stand up next to Roy at the wheel for a better view, but after lunch she also managed to negotiate the fairly steep steps from the wheelhouse into the saloon. Thank you, everyone, for a lovely and most satisfactory day – especially the appointed (press-ganged?) drivers, John and Phil, who forwent champagne in favour of coffee. Nespresso, yes, but still.
All shagged out after a long squawk – our one-day VHF radio course at Bisham Abbey Sailing and Navigation – it was time for Roy and me to resume our new lives of leisure with a celebratory cruise. Where should we go? Henley-on-Thames again, we decided.
A light wind was behind us, as was the summer’s final Bank holiday weekend, so conditions on the river were perfect. Few other boats were out there, but several groups of summer-happy kids were swimming, camping, barbecuing and generally having a jolly time. Sonning and Shiplake locks comfortably negotiated, we found a convenient mooring very close to town, just 300 metres from the bridge.
“Mayday”, if you didn’t already know, comes from the French m’aidez, or help me. And that’s probably as much as I’m going to remember from the VHF radio course that we’ve just done, so I sincerely hope that no one else’s life is going to depend on my radio skills anytime soon.
