The rain departed during the night, and the sky cleared, with the inevitable result that the temperature dropped like a stone, and in our bedroom this morning my clock said it was only 8.5° C! However, the heating soon came on and it was reasonable - not warm, but reasonable - by the time I went to have my shower.
We decided against retracing our steps into Troyes - we have been there before and will doubtless go again. So we headed straight on towards Saint-Quentin, stopping for me to shop and then again for lunch. Alas, by the time we got there, there was No Room in the Inn as the aire was full. So we decided to come here to the Riqueval canal tunnel, where we have been a couple of times before. There are services, but according to the nice man in the tourist office nearby, they are a new installation and don't work, so he came out to see exactly how they didn't work, so he could report it! He also let the Swan Whisperer have some water from the tap, so we should be all right for showers in the morning.
After a cup of tea, we went out for a walk from the tunnel mouth down to the bridge over the canal and back. What was rather fun was that there was a barge just coming under the bridge
so we were sort-of racing it all the way back - it was travelling at about the same speed I'm comfortable with, so I pushed myself slightly. But it moored up before reaching the tunnel, and we thought it might not go through this evening. And on that side of the canal you have to go down to water level and up again, rather than staying on the level of the bridge as you do on the far side, which was a very long pull up. I got there in the end, but was utterly feeble and kept having to stop to catch my breath. Poor Swan Whisperer was very patient with me, but I'm sure he'd rather have gone on by himself rather than trailing along at my speed. He was most polite, but....
Anyway, we are approaching the end of the holiday - Calais tomorrow, and a Last Shop in France, and then home on Saturday.
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