Les Canaux de France - Joan Bond
October 2010
If you have lived on a French canal as I have you have endless space of gorgeous scenery, places to go and things to do and, more to the point, plenty of time to do it in.
There are so many rivers and canals on which to travel, in fact one can cover most of Europe taking your home with you. There is of course maintenance, boats always need work; cleaning decks; painting and mechanics if necessary. Being a woman I leave this to the guys, who relish the idea that women are hopeless; but while a woman can use this tactic, why get your hands greasy? A wonderful sight in the misty mornings are the weird and beautifully engineered spiders webs that are strung across all the stanchions.
So many interesting people follow this way of life! One, my immediate neighbour, Joseph, is a retired physiotherapist and is full of tales that can now be divulged. Lady, well let’s call her ‘X’, was a client; looked down her nose at the hoi polloi but, get her on a couch, and need I say more. He is extremely helpful with all the small muscle excesses which we seem to have, lifting, carrying and manoeuvring when on the move.
Josh and Ben are young guys in their twenties over from Sweden to experience a new life. They go to terrific parties but never, crossing the gangplank on the return home, fail to fall into the river still laughing. You have to get them out before they go under three times or its goodbye, but, fortunately their mates accomplish this with shrieks of delight and get them on deck leaving them to sober up.
Joanna, a dutiful brunette, came, unwillingly, with a husband, very keen to float off - and float off he did with a Goldilocks from another boat. She, however, now loves the barge life and runs a business making and selling fabulous smelling soaps.
Germaine and her husband Angus, retired teachers from Aberdeen, arrived twenty years ago at the age of sixty eight. He died recently, but she carries on running a library for the Brits that come and go all summer. She also takes students for classes teaching them the many languages she is fluent at still at 91 years of age.
Off to a trip up river where there is such a choice of lovely villages and small towns. For the trip you need a helpmate when encountering locks. On entry there has to be someone to grab for the ladder, jump up on the wall ready to get a rope around a bollard fore and aft. When travelling downriver the ropes have to be constantly manned otherwise, as the water runs out your boat gets left hanging on the wall. People new to boating have to learn the rules as there is a procedure as to placing the boat enabling everyone to pack in. I have learned much new vocabulary at some of the altercations. The camaraderie is good among normal crew, who smile widely as they steer their boat into yours, but it all usually ends in a glass of wine at sunset.
The Germans were billeted in this village during the war and one stayed on, his family have now the largest boat firm in France and you know when his friends have arrived as there are towels placed on the river bank.
Loads of Brit Pats retire and live on their boats all winter where they organise study groups as we at U3A. With the talent of previous occupations, the courses are many and varied so you can learn anything including taxidermy; don’t stroke the cat on the step as you go in, it’s stuffed; an expression by the way not used when you are full of food.
Of course, when you have such a goof life there are always visitors popping over for a holiday. It’s wonderful to see them but gets really expensive feeding them. I believe they think if you can afford to retire to a lovely existence you have plenty of readies. Still it makes it easier to lose weight afterwards through necessity.
Well, have I given you something to aim for in your old age? (When that arrives!)