From Seurre to Fragne, France

View as we walk around our marina.

Entrance/Exit to our marina which is called The Old Lock

Looking from the bridge at the entrance into our marina.

Our neighbor Linda with Wilson.

Another neighbor

First time this season putting our car onto our deck.

There are good days.  There are bad days. And then there can be really bad days.  We had one of those really bad days.  In the end, no one was hurt and issues that weren’t completed eventually will be resolved.

We're off!  Finally!

This was high tide two weeks ago.  We're happy we weren't on the river then.

It started in Fragne when we got in the car for the hour drive to Dijon.  The car wouldn’t start!  Fortunately we were right across the street from a car dealer.  Since we didn’t know yet why the car wouldn’t start (I assumed a dead battery), I went back to the boat.  Let the men handle the car troubles.  While waiting a boat passed by much too rapidly.  Next I hear a commotion on deck.  Kevin has run back to the boat with Tom on his heels.  Since there were no bollards for us to tie up to we had driven heavy stakes into the soft ground.  The boat going by created too much wake rocking Rabelo, which caused the stakes to pull up.  One even landed in the canal.  Kevin’s keen eye saw our pilothouse bobbing up and down and knew there was a problem.  Had we not had car trouble our boat would have drifted across the narrow canal blocking traffic in both directions.  Getting permission to move Rabelo to a mooring just vacated by a hotel barge, Tom had to maneuver our big 130 foot baby backwards a fair distance to our new mooring.  At least here we would stay put!  By now we had a new car battery, a safe mooring, and we were over an hour late meeting a friend for lunch in Dijon. 

Dead battery.

After a quick but lovely lunch with our chief friend Alex Miles it was off to HSBC to complete our banking transaction so we could have our French account.  The problem was (making a very long story short) our French debit cards and pin numbers were being sent to our California address.  That wasn’t going to work.  I was finally told that in an emergency HSBC members could receive emergency funds from our United States account by making a phone call and answering the security questions.  Using the bank phone I proceeded to do as instructed.  After being on hold a LONG time I finally got a real person on the line.  I told her what was needed in order to get the funds to their Dijon HSBC branch.  She understood but said she must speak to someone at the branch who spoke English!  There was no one available who spoke English!  She refused to send the necessary email to the Dijon branch confirming the available funds until she spoke to someone who spoke English!  I’m in France!  They don’t have to speak English here!  It isn’t normal for me to hang up on someone but after the day we had experienced, my frustration level was too high and I hung up after telling her I didn’t think HSBC was going to work as our international bank.  If it hadn’t been such a frustrating day I might have asked to speak to a supervisor.  I honestly don’t understand how people are supposed to do international banking in foreign countries when it is expected that the world will speak English.  By the way, we’ve waited weeks for our debit cards and pin numbers to be sent to the Dijon branch as requested.  They are promising that next week all will be resolved.  I’m not holding my breath.  Besides, Monday is another bank holiday!  They have many bank holidays in May in France.

Optimistic couple before spending two frustrating hours at HSBC.

OK, on to more pleasant topics.  ICE CREAM.  We have now made chocolate ice cream, which was amazing, roasted banana ice cream that was ok, and rum raisin, which will knock your socks off.  It had tons of raisins soaked in lots of rum.  The coffee ice cream was also excellent!  It’s all delicious!

We stopped for a night in Seurre where we came across 3 couples from California.  They had rented a canal boat for the week.  We enjoyed meeting them.  We counted 4 boulangerie in the little town.  The one we choose was great!

We are finally getting some good walks in.

Where are my eggs?

Next was Fragne where we had our troubles.  Our time there wasn’t all bad.  We drove to Chalon-sur-Soane, which we had visited last year.  We wandered around, had a good lunch with wine at a Bistro filled with locals.  Then we found a wine shop!  We were running low on red wine.  How can that be when we are in Burgundy?  We took care of the problem by buying over a case of wine.

Today was a beautiful cruise on the Canal du Centre to Chagny.  It feels like fall here instead of spring.  The wind has a crispness to it and leaves were blowing into the canal.  How windy was it you might ask?  Windy enough to wish we had a bow thruster on Rabelo.  Windy enough to watch beautiful wave patterns playing around in the fields of grain.  Instead of amber waves of grain it’s green waves of grain.  We will be here thru the weekend.  We have a special treat for our first guests on Monday.

Fragny Square.  Last time we were here this was an outdoor market.

Some local French news:  Paris is almost doubling fines for dropping cigarette butts.  They collect around 350 tons of them a year!  Can you imagine?

This morning as I cut into a freshly baked crusty loaf of bread the crumbs sprang from under my knife to jump and spread all around.  

My new web site is almost complete.  Check out the progress at www.lisamillerartist.com