Despite the accident, we made very good progress, lunched at Rolampont where we'd planned to stop for the night, and motored on to a lovely wide basin mooring at Fullain, truly rural but just 5mins walk to an artisan baker's shop and right beside the walled cemetery where a funeral had just ended as we pulled in at 4.30.
With no light pollution, the stars were brilliant in the early part of the night, but by the time the dog woke us at 5am desperate to go ashore for a pee, the clouds had rolled over them. Loony GSD's leg is no better so we have switched her to the steroid pills and will be looking for a Vet at the next decent sized town. We also need a medic for MWNN's eye which he neglected to treat when he got grit in it and now looks truly horrible.
The President of the Cruising Association (a relative of the French couple withy whom we shared locks up a section of the climb to Langres) of these parts tells me that there is a launderette in the Capitainerie at Chaumont. If this proves to be true, we will moor there tonight and become honorary members of the Association. I just HAVE to get one of their T-Shirts, saying I'm a member of L'A.N.C.R.E. (If you're not a Discworld fan you won't get that one).
We pulled into the mooring at Chaumont just after the lunch stop that left us moored two locks upstream of the Port de Plaisance. A NZ couple are moored here awaiting the arrival of friends and tell me there IS a drying machine at the Capitainerie. Unfortunately it doesn't open until 4pm so there's a couple of hours wait. The sun came out about 30 minutes ago so I'm tempted to put the bed linen through the 'barrel' and use the sheets as shade for the back deck.
