An Irishman's boating diary
We chat to Ronnie & Mary on their Grand Canal Company Barge 72M.
Join us while we take a look at this old Grand Canal Company barge 72M. All the barges were 60 foot barges and were numbered by the Grand Canal Company. The M signified that it was a motor powered barge rather than a horse drawn barge.
Ronnie & Mary bought their barge when it was just a rusting hull,
in Ringsend Basin in Dublin. Over the next four years they set about making it into a floating home.
We have been in Meaux for over a week now waiting for a bicycle trailer! That is very out of character for us as we are normally randomly ambling around the canals & rivers. However there is a reason for this, because all French filling stations are strategically situated away from waterways boaters have to walk for miles with jerrycans of diesel. This forces them to buy the overpriced diesel from marinas where the diesel has been stored in a damp underground tank since last season. I’m
Well it’s a wet Easter Saturday and the weather should be reasonably good by now. But it was raining when we woke this morning and it’s still raining. when we untied at 1pm it was raining and it kept raining all day. We tied up in Dompierre sur Besbre at 5:30pm and it was still raining. Now don’t get me wrong, after all I’m a Paddy and well used to rain, and I’m used to wet Easters too, but I thought this sort of rain only occurred in Ireland?
It has been unusually cold and wet here for the past ten days or so. We were waiting for an improvement in the weather in a small town called Coures les Barres and today 1-April-10 was just such a day. It’s still cold but at least the sun came out as we headed south towards the city of Decize. It was a seven hour trip which was a bit more that we had hoped to do.
Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow. (Billy Shakespeare). Ah yes a new season is upon us and it’s sad leaving the good friends that we have been lucky enough to make in Briare. Soon we head off along the canal again. I had been looking forward to leaving Briare in the spring sunshine since the first snow and ice of the winter appeared last December. But when the day finally did
Well I hear that the storms here in France last week were well reported. It wasn’t that bad here in Briare as elsewhere in France but still it was quite severe. Here is a short video clip of it.
Well all that snow and ice that you saw in our last blog has melted now and
the temperatures are generally well above freezing, 6 degrees today but there is a very cold wind out which makes it feel a lot cooler. We took the local bus to Gien our largest neighbouring town yesterday, it was the first time that Mar and myself had been out of Briare without proper adult supervision but we managed not get lost or get into much trouble.
Well Christmas is over and we are well into one of the coldest winters in decades. We certainly picked a tough year to spend our first winter on board our boat. It has been quite cold and that has posed new challanges for us but we have enjoyed every bit of it.
Christmas in Briare
Christmas 2009 was a cold one. We spent Christmas in Briare and it was a wonderful white Christmas too. At home in Ireland it’s very seldom that we get any snow before January and the bookies always make a fortune off people betting on a white Christmas.
Winter is here now and it’s getting very cold. The last five weeks have been a whirlwind. We had my parents over, and then we met Brian, Billy, Sean and their three wives who were away for a month’s holiday on board “Waterman”.
The weather here is still holding out, we get a wet day here and there but by and large it only rains at night. Leaving the days clear and crisp for long walks or whatever.
Thanks For dropping in
I know… I just said the recession word. Please forgive me while I relate my story… At least I said in the context of boating through a recession! I had just returned to the Wicklow hills from a weeks holiday in France on our boat “Driftwood” . Wicklow is where we live and it’s where I work. The book about our adventure bringing our Shannon cruiser to France had just