4 May to 9 May 2018.
After the normal Emirates flights which seemed to take
forever and which were only different in that our pilot decided to do a last
minute landing abort on the approach to Dubai because “…flight control was
bringing us in too close to another aircraft…”, and which seemed interminable
for some or other reason, we landed in Paris.
A quick transit through immigration and customs found us
on the pavement trying to message our Blablacar driver; eventually we receive an
sms – “I can be there at 17h30”. Fantastic! We will get to Auxerre earlier
rather than later. But he eventually arrived at ten past six and had somehow
procured a seven seater mini-bus (‘mini’ being the operative word) as he had
planned to pick up his sister and another fare in the middle of the city so we
sat in a traffic jam and collected them over an hour late at half past seven. If he had told us
that the Metro trains were not affected by the strike then we could have met him in
the city very close to where he met his sister and the other fare and we would
probably have missed the A6 accident.
And the vehicle broke down four kilometres outside
Auxerre due to a low oil pressure cutout; fortunately he was carrying spare oil
so it did not take long for us to be on our way again but the upshot was that
we only arrived at our hotel at half past ten but did we sleep well that night!
The next morning I dash down to Elle at first light to start the de-winterising process only to
find her rafted up against another boat which had a huge canvas cover over her
which completely obliterated Elle from
sight – great for security but making boarding impossible. Grumbles indeed.
Nine ‘o clock we make contact with the Aquarelle staff
and eventually Elle is towed to an
open berth behind the covered boat and then we are at it like feverish
beavers until, forty eight hours later, with hearts in mouths, it is time to
fire up the engines. And they purr into life without missing a beat – as the
saying goes, “Don’t you just love the smell of diesel in the morning?”!
 |
| Lynn making use of the plastic sewing machine. |
 |
| Our first lunch aboard. |
With access to the upstream Bailly caves and winery blocked
by an issue with the barrage at Vaux we are forced to head north immediately
but a great surprise is that Ian and Sian aboard Njord are heading toward us at speed and we will meet then in a
couple of days in Joigny and then cruise to Paris together.
 |
| Beautiful Auxerre |
