Saturday 7 September

We are up early to be ready for the mechanic when he comes.  He makes it on time and his English is good enough for us to fully explain what has gone wrong.  He too curses our engine and how difficult it is to change the impeller, which is his first step.  The one he takes out is not at all in bad shape, but the engine is still quite hot after nearly 18 hours!  He checks everything out and cannot find anything serious wrong.  He is sure that we haven’t blown the gasket (a relief).  But the water is still not circulating properly.  We had a special fitting put on top of the intake to inspect and see if it is blocked, but that fitting seems to have corroded and he cannot easily loosen it.  We are all afraid of putting too much pressure on it for fear of breaking it and letting the sea in unimpeded!  So with heart in throat, and wooden bungs close at hand he works on it.  It does come free without force eventually and yes it is blocked.  It is full of weed and twigs, no doubt from the canals.  They have a lot to answer for.  When he clears the intake the water starts to flow properly.  We try out the engine, but of course can’t put on too many revs in forward gear or we will break off our cleats with the lines holding us to the pontoon.  All seems well and the engineer is happy.  He too believes we need a diver to look at the propeller.  He recommends the man we have already booked!  Also told he is not expensive.  So phase one of repairs is done.

We would have liked to go to the beach for the rest of the day, but the weather has let us down.  It is dark, cool and showery all day.  So we just stay on the boat.  I am resting my leg for the longish walk to the restaurant this evening.  I am a bit bored however.  We have no internet.  The dongle thingy is not working.  We think that Richard managed to leave it on and thus ran it out of 25 euros credit within two days.  The annoying part is that there is no Orange shop in town and we cannot find any other way of topping up the credit.  So we sit in listening to French radio- Nostalgie.  Not terrible, but a bit dull playing the same bad French pop music from years ago over and over.  I also decide to start a new tapestry I got as a Christmas present- a Queen’s diamond Jubilee themed cushion cover.  I work on it for a few hours only then to realize that I have done the stitches backwards!  I don’t think it matters, but I can’t decide whether to carry on this way or rip what I have done out and start again.

Dinner time is approaching and we get dressed to go.  The idea was to take the cable car over the canal (to limit the amount of walking) just before it closes at 7:00pm and then go for a drink first.  But now it is raining and with the rain this afternoon I am sure the seats will be wet.  I do not want to go to dinner with a wet bum!  So we walk.  We make it to the left bank and start to look for a place to have our drink.  All of a sudden it is starting to rain quite hard.  So we jump into a place we are passing which calls itself a cocktail bar.  I would not ordinarily go into this place.  It is weird.  The décor is out of some pseudo-Louis XIV film.  All over stuffed sofas with tufting and velvet.  The cocktails seem very expensive- 11euros.  I think I might just have a kir, when R persuades me to have a cocktail with him.  Just as we order the heavens open.  I haven’t seen such heavy rain since the day we got soaked to the skin in the canals.  It seems we got in to this place just in time.  And we are not the only ones.  The place is suddenly completely full!  So it takes rather a long time to get our drinks.  When the drinks come you could knock us both down with a feather.  They are enormous!  They must be at least a litre each.  They look like jugs of drink, not individual cocktails.  I have no idea how we are going to get through them.  Other people who like us have taken refuge are equally amused at the size of the drinks.  No wonder they cost twice as much as usual.

Well we do manage to finish the drinks more or less and make it to the restaurant.  We have a delightful meal.  One of the best since we hit this coast.  The manager even recommends a very nice light local white wine for us to drink.  Richard thinks it is like Vino Verde, but that is being very unkind to it.

So home to bed.  The rain has let up, but it is still wet.