'There is Nothing Half so Much Worth Doing As Simply Messing about in Boats'

August saw us finally setting off on our much awaited and anticipated boating holiday in the South of France, on the Canal du Midi. We had originally booked this trip for June 2020 but obviously Covid prevented us from going and happily the various places we had booked were prepared to hold our reservations not just for one year but for two, as in 2021 there were still restrictions in France.

We flew from Israel to Paris and stayed overnight in a hotel which was literally on top of the Garde de Lyon, from where we were getting a train the next morning down to the South of France. We had a lovely afternoon enjoying a coffee on the Champs Elysée and then dinner at our favourite kosher restaurant in Paris, Le Kavod. Walking towards the restaurant we had forgotten that in France, as in some other European countries, armed police, state provided, guard not only synagogues but also Jewish shops and restaurants and it was quite a shocking reminder of anti Semitism in Europe. We slept well, no noise from the trains and excitedly boarded our train the next morning - Malcolm loving trains as much as I do!

Arriving in Montpelier a few hours later our boat pick up point was a short taxi ride away. As we were shown the boat my heart sank. It was enormous! When we had originally booked it we had thought that some of the children might join us for a few days - and we wanted a second toilet - so silly!! I really felt panicky at the thought of the two of us coping with such a big boat but Malcolm wasn't phased at all and happily set off on a test drive with one the boating company's staff, both unbothered that they didn't speak each others language. My French is quite good so, about a month previously I had swapped from Hebrew to French on my Duolingo app, and was quite proud of my efforts to refresh and update my skills. Haha - funnily enough it didn't cover words like 'bilge pump' and 'ignition'. Nevertheless, I understood (hopefully) most of the instructions and off we went.

The weather was glorious and the water ways wonderfully peaceful. Mid September is a great time to be in the South of France and even I was able to relax and enjoy the peace and the beautiful scenery. However, after a pleasant afternoon on the canal we hit upon our first problem, and one that would repeat every evening. We had been given a file with maps of our route and information for every possible place to moor. the boat However, we only realised when the first place we tried to moor at that evening was full, that there was no guarantee that any of these places would have room for us. By the time we found a berth it was getting dark and we had reached the limit of when you were allowed out on the water. Just to add to the stress, despite the file indicating otherwise, there was nowhere for us to refill the water tank or to plug into a generator. The one socket on board- I repeat - ONE socket, only worked when the boat was plugged in. So no way of charging our phones or...........Malcolm's laptop! To be fair, whilst my stress levels were now orbital Malcolm was actually very philosophical about the whole thing and so we went to bed.

Malcolm's family had a holiday home in Norfolk and he had grown up messing about on the Broads and they even had a small motor boat which he used to take out with friends. They often slept on the boat and even though he was already over six foot by the time he was 14 he had very happy memories of it. We inherited the boat when they sold the bungalow and, BC (Before Children), had a lot of fun mooring it on a different river or canal each year. This was probably why we had planned and were looking forward to this trip. Now I would like to think we are not so spoilt that we can only sleep in five star accommodation nor so stupid as not to realise that the sleeping quarters would be basic but .........we hated it. I think we could have coped with the rubber mattress under the sheets, and the fact that the bed was hemmed in on three sides so that I had to climb over Malcolm to get to the toilet in the night, but it was incredibly humid and hot and we found the whole experience unpleasant.

No matter, the next morning was another lovely day and we were determined not to let the nights spoil the days. Unfortunately the sore eye, that had been bothering Malcolm the day before, had got worse so we stopped early that evening, to avoid the stress of finding a berth late and bought some eye drops at a pharmacy.

We had thought that our instructor had told us that there was one low bridge where we would have to take the canopy down. We had misunderstood! The bridge he was pointing out was the first of many, many low bridges. We had put the canopy back up after the first bridge because it was very sunny but thankfully as we approached the next one we realised just in time and got it down. It’s stayed down after that and we just wore our caps and applied sun cream liberally. At six foot two Malcolm is used to ducking but at the first low bridge we came to when I was at the wheel I was so focused on getting through the narrow gap that I didn’t hear Malcolm say duck and I missed being knocked out by a whisker. Ignoring drama there were lots of lovely bridges and some very interesting ones which opened vertically, outwards or to the side. Needless to say I took a lot of photos and I’m only sharing a small selection of my favourite bridges with you (and a couple of spectacular aqueduct's!).

One of my concerns when I had seen the size of the boat was how we would manage when it came to the locks. All the locks were automatic and manned but nonetheless with Malcolm staying on the boat to steer it was going to be my responsibility to handle the ropes and hang onto them while the boat went up or down. Adding to the stress is the fact that locks , understandably, and the struggle to control a boat getting into, once inside and even getting out of a lock is clearly a great source of interest and entertainment to the passing public. Having an audience watching me struggle to catch a rope, hang on to it while the water went up in particular, or try and throw it back to Malcolm’s might have been great entertainment for them but didn’t do much for my humour!!

An extra pair of hands would have helped and enabled me to really enjoy some of the fabulous engineering involved in the lock designs and construction. The most dramatic, although surprisingly not the most challenging, was seven step locks in a row. There was a big crowd along the sides of these locks but fortunately other boat users provided the entertainment on this occasion. I won’t pretend it wasn’t challenging at times and that taking a canal through locks is as good a way as any to test ones marriage after 36 years, but most of the time it was actually fine and everything went smoothly.

After another sleepless night, with Malcolm's eye getting worse, we studied the map and make the decision to try and get to Homps, where we were returning the boat, as soon as possibly. Looking at the number of locks still to go we reckoned we could get there by Thursday and thanks to booking.com were able to change our reservation in Carcassonne from Sunday to Thursday night. Despite forgetting that lock keepers in France take lunch from 12 - 1, and discovering that one of the locks only operated upstream between certain hours, we were relieved to return our boat on Thursday afternoon and Malcolm managed to see a doctor in Carcassonne on Thursday evening, who gave him different antibiotic eye drops. We had stayed in Carcassonne once before, on our 25th wedding anniversary road trip through the South of France in Malcolm’s Morgan. It’s a really beautiful medieval walled city and we stayed in the lovely Hotel de la Cite right in the middle. We had the opportunity to recover from our adventures and spent a lot of time watching programmes about the Queen and monitoring the progress of the queue. Malcolm's business partner and friend Johnny Brooke is one of the 28 Gentleman At Arms, the Monarch's Royal Guards and so we kept checking to see if he was on guard. On Monday we picked up a car and were due to drive to our next destination the Château de la Treyne in the Dordoyne. We were hoping we would find somewhere suitable to stop and watch the funeral en route, but knowing that the château was in a remote location, and with Malcolm’s eye getting worse we ended up watching it in a French A and E. Well I watched it on my phone in the car park and Malcolm on his phone in A and E with all the nurses crowding round to watch it with him. His school boy French was not up to asking them to get his test results instead of watching television. A different set of antibiotics (the others are rubbish, these are much better) and we set off for the château.

A beautiful hotel in a stunning setting. Our original plan had been for us to celebrate Malcolm’s birthday on the Wednesday then take fly to London on Thursday in time for Rosh Hashanah on Sunday evening. After British Airways cancelled our flight we were really excited to book the night train from Toulouse to Paris on Thursday night, then we would take Eurostar to London. Normally very social and good humoured Malcolm had not been looking forward to his approaching 60th birthday hence his decision to ‘celebrate’ this milestone alone with me in an isolated castle in France! By the time we got there he was thoroughly miserable so we celebrated his birthday by flying straight back to London, to English medical care and a doctors appointment on Thursday morning. To cut the rest of the medical drama short, he had overworked (surprise surprise) in preparation for the holiday and his poor eyes had suffered. Lesson learnt? Probably not - too late for this leopard to change his spots.

It's fair to say that while some elements of the trip were an unmitigated disaster others exactly matched our hopes and expectations. Would we do it again? Yes I think we possibly (note : possibly not probably!) would, although in a different format and we definitely still want to try the night train - in fact we've put Interrailing on our to do list, as neither of us did it as students, especially as we've found out you can buy a first class Interrail ticket!! Why we think we will enjoy sleeping on a train when we didn't like the boat I don't know. Will we ever learn? I hope not!