new boat for new guests

We woke up at the crack of dawn (well, 6am) to say goodbye to my Uncle Henry, Uncle Wes and Auntie Judith. Dad and I were both really sad to see them go. It'd been a brilliant few days even with all the drama of the engine!

That was it, dad and I were on our own to get through the last lock before Homps. Just the two of us - how on earth were we going to do it?! It worked out great in the end although the boat was getting seriously sluggish. Once we reached the mooring spot for all Canalous boats, we couldn't even get reverse to work and had to abandon her on the wrong side of the Canal!

We went to have stern words with the Canalous rep. in his office (and to get someone to bring the bloody boat in to the right part of the port). The rep at the Homps office turned out to be the first sensible person we'd spoken to from the outfit. He took a full report of everything that had gone wrong since we picked the wretched thing up on the first day. We explained about the money we'd paid for it, how it was a present for my dad's birthday and how we had my three wee nieces coming today for the rest of the week so we'd need a new boat.

First, they tried to palm us off with a boat that was worse than the one we'd had! Incredible. Luckily, I'm a more stubborn complainer than my dad, so we got a deluxe model instead! It still slept 8, but was much newer, cleaner and just generally a lot safer than the last hunk of junk.

Dad and I cleared the old one of all our stuff and packed it into the new place. We had a bit of lunch and waited for the rest of the crew to arrive.

Around 1.30pm, mum, my sister, her husband and their 3 kids arrived. It was so great to see them. We set off back in the direction we'd come from (rather than going all the way to Carcassonne) because there were fewer locks. As it would just be mum, dad and me for the majority of the last few days, we thought it would be easier that way. Hopefully, we'll get some recompense from the company for the first 4 days which we can use in future to do the next stretch of Canal.

The girls loved it onboard, especially Elizabeth. She sat out front, was fascinated by the locks and asked questions the whole time.

Getting a new boat was like sitting into a new car; it was hard to get used to the width, the steering and the height for going under the wee bridges. Dad and I were also, at this stage, the only ones able to drive it, so the pressure was on.

We made it down a couple of locks and said goodbye to Carrie, Paddy and the girls who headed off to stay with friends for the next couple of nights.

Mum, dad and I carried on a bit and moored at a town called Argens-Minervois where we had dinner at La Grenouiile Souriante and came back for our first night's sleep on the new boat.