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| WW1 obelisk at Masnieres |
Cold -0° C overnight. Odd
flurries of flakes of snow, chilly, grey and overcast. set off at 9.30 a.m.
Marylene had loaded and was off down the locks before us at 9 a.m. Bill spoke
to Mike about wiring his temperature gauge sender when we got to Bracheux, lock
6. It wouldn’t work after he’d wired it in - he’d got the washers in the wrong
order, so he changed them round as we dropped down the lock, it was all OK
after that, breathe a sigh of relief! A cheery gang of VNF woodcutters below the
lock shouted hello to us as we passed. Down lock 5 Marcoing and then along a
short pound full of very loud ducks to 4 Talma, bottom of the three. A yacht
was moored in the basin below Talma. Blackthorn trees were almost ready to
burst forth into flower along the next pound. A solitary youth on the towpath
gawped at the boat with the typical stare of a village idiot, then he tried to
beg cigarettes off Bill - who doesn’t smoke. Down 3 Noyelles and along a short
pound to 2 Catigeul. 1.6 kms to the next and flakes of snow started falling
again, blowing in our faces. More work was going on in the copse on our right,
a tractor pulled over a partly sawn-through tree with a resounding thud, then
the chainsaws started up to chop up the trunk.
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| Empty peniche abv Cantimpre |
The non-towpath side was covered
in the larger version of snowdrops that grow here called spring snowflakes.
Down lock 1 Proville, the last on the St Quentin canal. Two boats were being
unloaded by a digger dropping the cargo into a trailer hauled by a tractor at a
builder’s yard. Export from Anzin was already empty, with Euro from Dunkerque
half empty. Just above Cantimpré, lock 1 (numbers start again), in Cambrai the navigation
changed to the canalised river Escaut. It was just on midday as we arrived at
the keeper-operated lock.
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| Moored boats in basin at Cambrai |
We were busy spotting the boats in the basin, among
them two narrowboats, The New Buffoonery of Winchester and Kells; the Murrell's
Luxemotor Friesland was there too. The keeper worked us through his lock,
operated from a cozy cabin. He came out and told us to keep together through
the next lock as it was automatic and then went off to his lunch five minutes
late at 12.05. Below the lock an empty called Ger-Jac from Béthune was moored
and just one converted péniche was moored up the arm with one empty moored
alongside it.
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| Aqueduct over Escaut at Noyelles |
Down lock 2 Selles with three Shetland ponies cropping the grass
on the non-towpath side above the lock. I made a hot sausage and egg sandwich
for lunch as we ran down to lock 3 Erre. More new signs (Mike remarked that France seems to have gone sign crazy over the last couple of years) by the sugar works commanding
pedestrians and fishermen not to stop within 50m of the signs. A text message
arrived from Peter, we said we’d answer it later it was too cold to take gloves
off! Snow was blowing across the flat fields as we went along the long pound
down to lock 4 Thun l’Evêque, where the cheerful, chatty chef (boss) from the
gang of VNF woodcutters was waiting for us, his white van parked on the
lockside.
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| Old shops for sale (2011) at Bassin Rond |
We dropped down the lock and he went off in his van to operate the
next lock for us. Salinas from Gent was loading at the silo at KP 9.5, while
Forez, also moored on the silo quay, had just lost a large diameter bore tube
overboard. We went to try and help fetch it out as the skipper was lying along
his gunwales to try to reach it. My short shaft was far too short to reach it.
Bill came back to offer his longer pole. I asked the chap if he wanted to try
from our bows as it was nearer but he declined. We came to the conclusion that
he was a bit embarrassed at having help from plaisanciers, so we backed off and
went on down to the next lock wishing “bonne courage!” to him and his missus,
who’d just fetched a small grappling hook on a length of cord. The keeper at
lock 5 Iwuy asked for our papers and vignette.
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| Pontoon (repaired in 2011) Bassin Rond |
He looked out our purple card
and said it was no good, I replied that we wouldn’t escape without paying at
the last lock before Belgium. He laughed, he was pulling Mike’s leg when he
said having no licence would cost him lots of sous! The last couple of
kilometres down to the Bassin Rond seemed to get even colder. We moored next to
the mouldering old pontoon, which had less and less wooden planking each time we
moor there, this time the passerelles had been blocked off with “access
interdit” signs on the fencing. It was no problem to step off the pontoon on to the bank
anyway! It was 3 p.m. I sent an SMS to Peter and Mike went to get the car. I
boiled a bacon blade bone joint then turned the meat into a stew for dinner with
onions, carrots and pearl barley. (The rest is Amateur Radio stuff – non-Amateurs
please continue to next posting!) Peter sent an SMS to ask us to help test his
new HF antenna - a carbon fibre fishing rod! It worked well on 20m he said -
but we couldn’t hear him, the skip distance must have been wrong. Tried 40m, but
it was very crowded and the stations tuning up obliterated Peter’s signals. Not
to give up, we moved on to 80m and found that was much better, although there
was lots of interference from adjacent stations spreading over several kcs of
the band. Mike went to record to record something on TV after handing the
microphone over to me, but found that switching on our little Handy Mains inverter wiped out Peter’s
audio signals. A few minutes later he disappeared into the noise anyway, so we
switched the HF set off and ate the stew which was still just about warm. (Oh!
the days pre-mobile internet!)
Sorry, still a dearth of photos from this date - here's some from 2011
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