Wednesday 23rd September 2009 Gannay. C. Lat à La Loire

Warm and sunny. We went shopping at Carrefour in Moulins, 28 kms from Gannay and also started a search for perspex sheets. The only ones they had were 50cms wide and we needed 63cm. Mike asked but they had none wider. They had a great selection of artists’ materials, even clay! We got the groceries in Carrefour. Didn’t like the store layout, had to search for stuff. Went to find the Bricomarché in the north of the town and were hampered by the one way system. Found the place, it was closed for lunch, made our way through the suburbs and eventually found the road back to Gannay. 

Tuesday 22nd September 2009 Gannay. C. Lat à La Loire

Warm and sunny after early morning mist. Mike measured up the sizes for some acrylic sheet to make double glazing for the bedroom (as we’re now back in the land of snow and ice we may get ice overnight on the inside of the window frames!) and I checked the location of Carrefour in Moulins then looked for a bricolage. Only found Bricomarchés, but they should sell the stuff we need. Decided we’d go shopping next day and did some painting. Helped put masking tape on the engine room roof and Mike did the green bands and also painted the tiller. Several hire boats arrived, filled the last bit of the quay and started mooring on the opposite bank. 

Monday 21st September 2009 Garnat to Gannay. C. Lat à La Loire

Grey clouds at first which cleared to give a lovely sunny day, warm. A converted péniche went past heading downhill around 9.30 a.m. Then a Canalous hireboat arrived dragging a huge wash until we all stood staring at it and Mike told the steerer off about it – then he moored along the quay on the other side of us and asked if there was a supermarket. We set off at 10.05 a.m. just as the woman off the hireboat rode over the road bridge and asked if she was going the right way to the supermarket. Yes, there was one 1km down that road or 7km at Bourbon-Lancy. Followed The Big Boat along the 4 kms to the first lock. A meadow full of Charollais cows had an attendant flock of upwards of twenty egrets. Lock 10 Rosière (2.4m) wasn’t ready when we got there and the keeper (an older man) closed the bottom end gates and started the lock filling when The Big Boat stopped and hovered in the middle of the cut above the lock. There were three vans and a car on the lockside with two VNF workmen wandering around. Once in the lock Mike wound the top end gate shut and when the lock was empty D opened the bottom end gate then got back on down the ladder. The two workmen sat watching. Heaven knows what job they were doing, we saw no evidence of any maintenance work in progress – perhaps they hadn’t started yet! By the first bridge a shortened commercial was moored. Although it was now 30m long it still had its original plate on the back which said it was 55m long and carried 678 tonnes. An old cruiser was moored next to a VNF house at the next bridge, all looked locked up and one away. Maybe a holiday house now? 

A young VNF man worked lock 11, Gailloux (3.38m) and lifted a feed paddle as we left - the pound below was overfull and the one above had been 6” to 8” down. It was 12.10 p.m. he’d worked 10 minutes into his lunch break. A short line of plane trees on the left hand made a change from the usual oaks on this canal. 3.2 kms to Gannay. The Big Boat moored at the end of a line of moored boats before the layby and lock at Gannay. We carried on to see what was available closer to the lock. There were eight or nine large replica Dutch barges, mostly left for the winter and a couple of cruisers. There was enough space for us on the quay in the layby where, according to our notes there was free water and electricity for three days. We moored between a pair of breasted up DBs and a Canalous hireboat. Shortly after The Big Boat came and moored beyond the hireboat. We had some lunch then I gave Mike a hand to get the fizzer off the roof and he collected the car from Garnat.