All goes bent in Britain

We only popped back for a couple of weeks. When we arrived all was calm with a bit of gentle joshing between, and within, the parties over EU club membership then all hell broke loose. Felt a bit of a Boris for leaving just after the vote but our return to Rouen was not without a bit of trepidation. Would Jean Claude Juncker spot that Hermy was under a British flag and impound her? Could he redirect her mast to Brussels and make me come and negotiate its return? Would the previously perfectly friendly French suddenly turn hostile to a passing, Parlez vous Anglais? All was a bit uncertain.

No need to worry, there wasn't even a strike on. However despite a good trip to Dover and a good ferry trip to Calais we started to come up against it. Firstly we needed to go to Calais Frethurn Railway station. Problem. It seemed to be a bit of a surprise to the French bus service that someone might want to go there from Calais. Still it was possible but not before our connection left.

So a Taxi it was. Luckily a nice young Swiss chap was also caught in this dilemma and agreed to share our taxi which shouldn't be much as it was only a few kilometres outside Calais. 40 Euros Holy Moly!

Still we got our train and all was well. First change Boulogne. There was a very still looking train on platform five with no one on it. An uninterpretable tannoy message infused doubt. I caught the eye of a French railway person who politely informed me that the train was broken but it was okay another left in an hour and a half.

The 17:50 was on time and all looked good until Abbeville where we stopped. There was some kind of problem on the line. The very nice lady guard enquired about our final destination and went away. We waited for 45 minutes before the train slowly moved on. Lady Guard turned up again  and politely said you can get a taxi from Amiens to Rouen. I turned a sort of greeny purple realising that it was about 70 miles and the guard looked a little puzzled. I blurted out something about combien de Euros and she looked even more puzzled. it slowly became apparent that the French Railway system would foot the bill. Fantastic.

We got the taxi and averaging 150 KM per hour, no idea what that is in shillings and pence, with an equally fast meter we arrived in Rouen at around 10:30 pm with the meter showing 330 Euros. We paid him 20 Euros to drop us at the marina. What a day but lovely to be back at the boat. No leaks, no problems.

We aimed to leave at 1:30 pm Friday after showing Joey a bit of Rouen and at 1 pm we docked at the fuel berth. Caro helmed us in and as usual it was all slightly more precise than the regular helm.

Bloody fuel machine wouldn't work so we wandered over to the office where some kind of Pizza party was taking place, but no marina staff. It was at this moment after several weeks at Rouen that we discovered that from 1st May lunch time extended from 11:30 to 16:00. Bugger. So we stayed another night, got soaked walking back from town and left at 10 am Saturday.

 Leaving Rouen with the Boss at the helm. I can't get anywhere near it now.

Very nice city with nice people and lovely views although we have noticed a tendency to build tower blocks on the top of hills which is a little strange.

You know when the helm has discovered the auto-helm!

A lovely four hour trip up to the first lock at Amfreville. I announced our arrival in my best English VHF voice only to be met by a blunt Parlez Francais! which put me on the spot. I mumbled something about permitez vous entree a l'ecluse s'il vous plait and he came back with a lot of French.

I replied repetez s'il vous plait and he said  "come in". You see they can do it if they try.

Just past the lock is the village of Poses. Very pretty if a little shallow but we parked in this tree right next to the restaurant we had dinner in.

Note number one son on deck! We walked around this pretty little village hoping to come across a patisserie but we only came by the artist Michele Ratal who had converted the old bakery into an art gallery. Great and some lovely oils of the seine but no bread!

The next morning I spotted a local with bread in her bag but I reckon they were plastic and she only does this to wind up the tourists.

Andelys next.