Nomad Si

“..the the EU has said it will not do a deal “at any price”, and Mr Johnson has said the UK will prosper either way.“

Who’d have thought it would come to this? As I listen to the news lately – whether about Covid-19, Trump and the madness that is much of our world today but particularly about sleepwalking into no deal and the disaster that is Brexit – the line “Drift gently into mental illness.” resonates. For me Brexit is existential damage. It has already changed the way I feel about my identity, ethnicity and my fellow country-people, in particular the English (see Udat? to be continued). On that level life has been hard since the referendum, and although I’m taking steps to mitigate the worst effects – freedom of movement etc. – watching the deceit, lies and newspeak that continues to seep from the lips of our PM and his trusty zealots is angst making in the extreme. All that said, I’m glad that I looked up Mirror in the Bathroom, it’s a fabulous track and listening brings back memories of lost, more blissful times. Enjoy!

I pass this lock daily, often two or three times, but I pass it on foot over the bridge from where I have taken this series of photos. Écluse douze has a nice ring to it, but has a deeper significance for us on Beatrix.

After three months in Verdun owing to the closure of the navigation for lack of water, and while Judy was away working in Ghana, I brought Beatrix here in October last year, assisted by our good friend and fellow Springfield boater Richard Mattingly. She has been here ever since.

We returned here in January this year ready to continue our voyage up La Meuse – strictly “Le Canal de l’Est” – in the spring.

In February we returned to London for a couple of weeks, or so we thought at the time, only to return here 8 months later in October – for which Covid-19 is mostly, but not entirely to blame.

The canal was closed to navigation again this summer – another drought – and although it opened shortly after we arrived, by then C19’s deuxième vague had struck and soon we were en confinement once more. So we are here for the winter! But now we are officially domiciled in la commune de Lacroix and residents of Le Port. Perhaps you are beginning to get an inkling of the significance of Écluse douze?

When we finally pass through É12 on Beatrix – peut-être next spring en route pour Le Canal des Vosges – we will finally be on our way again, after over a year of unscheduled but nevertheless unmissable stoppages. We love it here in Lorraine and were it not for the vagaries of climate, accident and disease we would likely have just sailed through and barely noticed this beautiful, understated and welcoming region. So there’ll be more of É12 to come normalement.

I told you so, or not!

Possibly best summed up by ramblings on raspberry rum…