Wearing trousers and kayaks

Lisa says I should continue this blog even if I am in France and we all know who wears the trousers in this relationship. So I will have a weekly or so update on progress at the camp site. I will try to make it boat related if not to do with narrow boats. Talking of which, a kayak is a boat of rather narrow dimensions so we can include that here. We have a small flotilla of craft here some of which I build myself and others we have bought.

I was adjusting Lisa's kayak to fit me with the aim of trying it out if the rain ever stops and was in the process of adjusting the footrests which involved sitting in it with the spray deck on (very tightly as the cockpit is too large for the spray deck) when a new camper drove up to book in. He looked at me on the grass in the kayak and asked if he could do the administration. I then realised that I had tucked the handle to release the spray deck inside the boat under the overly tight elastic. After some struggling I still couldn't get out of the boat and had to admit defeat so told him to sort himself out and come back later. Goodness knows what he thought. I had visions of me hopping, whilst in the kayak using the paddle to aid forward movement, over to reception to sit behind the desk still encased in the kayak. Well I got out eventually. That's probably not the bast spray deck for capsizing with.

Lisa came over for the first week and I have been on my own for this week and will be until the outlaws get here towards the end of June. It's not busy at the moment (it's never busy) as there are only one or two enterprising Dutch at any time. Our French friends visit occasionally from Dijon to check I am still alive but mostly it's just me and the dog. Sam is here as well as it wouldn't have been fair to keep her locked up in the boat all day in the marina. Barking dogs probably don't go down too well there unlike to tow path where there is nobody to care whether your dog is barking or not. Barking partners are a different story all together.

We got here and, since the place hadn't been cut since August last year, it looked like a jungle. In fact I met Ray Mears filming whilst on the way to the toilet block. It looks much better now and I have cleared much of the grass with the last bits still to do. The toilets are cleaned and we are just waiting for campers to arrive. Fat chance.