Tuesday 19th September 2023
We have a busy day today, well Christine did!!!!! There was all our washing; leaving the moment we arrived didn’t help!! We also needed to change the beds, and have a general clear-up before heading out to Spain tomorrow, however; one of our constant hobbies is looking at boats for sale and dreaming, and having just spent 3-days/2-nights on one our thoughts got the better of us and we arranged to go and see one in Valence, a town on the Rhone; quite out of our way, in fact heading North!!! Our mutual dream has been to travel the canals and rivers of Europe and this is such a boat!!! We made contact with the broker and arranged to meet up with the vendors in Valence; they would stop so we could have a look at her. The current owners are returning from the “Canal du Midi”, up the Rhône and heading to Burgundy; at least we know she is floats!!!!
At Lunchtime Andrew headed off to meet some friends at the airport, “Sophie and Janet, we just carried on regardless, including baby sit Elton and two dogs!!! Sophie is an old family friend and Janet is Sophie’s friend, they had come out for some late summer sun.
Andrew has also employed a young lady to help with Elton and generally help around the house, the bonus for Christine was she did our ironing, what a result!!! This is a fill-in position for her as she is trying to get onto a yacht having completed her hostess course; she has fallen on her feet here me thinks!!!
This evening the two ladies, Christine and I took Andrew and Elton out to dinner, he chose a restaurant on the quayside of this “huge” marina here in Frejus and it was excellent food; this is France after all!! The evening was “stretching” out, so Andrew withdrew with Elton leaving us to finish up. Tonight Sophie and Janet are sleeping on the boat so were picked up in the tender while we headed to find a taxi: taxi, what taxi!!! Eventually we contacted Elton XL’s skipper and asked him to come back with the keys for the boat’s pickup truck that he had parked in the marina so we could get home. Christine elected to drive but struggled with this “beast” with a manual gearbox so we compromised, she dit the pedals and steering whilst I sorted the gears out; we got home without incident!!!!! Everyone was in bed🤠🤠🤠