Monday 23rd July
Short run today from Courcy to the centre of Reims. We moored at the port de pleasance nearest to the cathedral. The pontoon was very short and we were swinging around in the wind so we decided to fill up with water and move a few hundred yards up the canal where we moored between the commercial barges. We upset a fisherman on our way onto the mooring as he refused to temporally lift his line. We could tell he was grumpy for the rest of the day because of us and it was undoubtedly our fault that he did not catch any fish. We were helped into the mooring by some enthusiastic winos who were sunning themselves on the bank. They are now are new best friends. Having moored up (this always takes us a lot longer than anyone else) David decided that we were aground and we had to move the barge back to a different bollard, upsetting the grumpy fisherman again. After a trip to the supermarket (which had fresh milk, hooray!) we finally settled down to a glass of Kir on the back deck, 80F in the shade at 7pm.