The girls are back

Marg and Erika returned by taxi from Orly airport after their holiday and next day we were off to show Ek some life on the canals. We decided to go back up the Marne river and take a few days to get to Meaux and she would leave us and return to Australia.

The Marne, although a big river has nowhere near the commercial traffic of the Seine and travels through some beautiful parts of Paris and the nearby country. There are islands in the river which have houses on them but no vehicular access. These little outboard powered punts are used by the owners to get to and from ‘The Mainland”.

The area had many examples of  lovely French houses.

As we continued up the Marne, Erika confided that since her trip was planned, she had the dream of relaxing on board with a baguette, a glass of bubbles and her sketchbook, So, we did it:

Where is the sketch book, Erika?

We continued upstream headed for Meaux, stopped for an evening and met a family of swans – who insisted on being fed.

Enough of the swans. At one location on one canal we counted a procession of over 50 of them. In Europe they are almost a problem.

We found ourselves back at the small township of Esbly. There we met “Annie Oakley”! The village appears to be in the residential area for Euro Disney which is not far away. Sonna Warvell, being part of the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show has lived here for many years and is considered a local. She is quite a character.

Another interesting thing happened here, there had been an unwanted encampment of gypsies on public open land within the village. At about 10.00 pm they started to decamp. There must have been one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty caravans and mobile homes all recent models, all pristine, which drove past us in a convoy lasting almost two hours. The travellers were off – to descend en-mass on another unsuspecting community. A surprising sight that we in Australia know very little about.  

Back to our favourite pastime, relaxing.

Even driving Matilda

Erika left us at Meaux, catching a bus to Charles de Gaulle airport then back to reality in Geraldton.

We now commenced our journey to Belgium. That meant back through Paris, up the river Oise and beyond.

One comment from Peter. “I am not allowed to put any comments in print regarding the girls trip to Italy or the size of the new suitcase we had to buy for Erika’s trip home or the new boots that Marg has in the cupboard or any of that, so I won’t”.

There will be more, so stay in touch.