Just Another Day

We’re glad it was “just another day,” as it felt like we’re getting back in the routine after our little adventure in the French healthcare system.

Today started with a visit from a nurse, to change the dressing on my thumb. Really, a home visit! She showed up about 11 o’clock – young, energetic, wearing regular street clothes, and, Laurie says I should include, quite beautiful. In ten minutes she had me fixed up with new dressing, in a much better fashion than the hand clinic had done. She, or one of her colleagues, will be here every other day to change the dressing; we understand it will cost less than $10 per visit!

When she took the old dressing off, I got a look at what I’d done to myself for the first time. Ugh. It is ugly. Really ugly. Pictures on request.

Then Laurie and I went to our local market, Carrefour, for groceries and a coffee-maker, to replace the one I broke. It felt good to get back to doing something normal.

Afterwards, we took a walk along our favorite route, the Canal Loing. We parked in the public parking at La Genevraye (population: 650) and saw this view of the Church here:

The first record of this Church is in the 13th century. It’s unusual in that it sits on a hill outside of the town; most churches are surrounded by their towns. I learned today this church, l’Egise de la Genevraye will be open and have a display of its history on France’s Day of Patrimony, September 12. We will definitely visit that day.

Then we walked along Canal Loing. Walking the section we walked today fills in a gap; we have now walked the canal from its entry into the Seine river upstream to Nemours, about seven miles in all.

Someday I’ll post more about the canals. We’ve thought about why we enjoy them so much, and enjoy watching boats – particularly working canal barges – go through the locks. We think it’s because the canals and the boats are a part of an older France, a France that is disappearing. Fifty years ago, a lock on this canal would have seen fifty boats a day; today, maybe ten, of which two or three would be real “working” boats and the rest private pleasure craft or “float the canals of France” tourist boats. Progress, I guess, but I’m sorry to see this aspect of France disappear.

Here’s a working canal boat, the “Thailand,” in the lock at Episy.

You can see that these canal boats were built for the size of the locks. There is no more than a foot of clearance on each side, and maybe two or three feet of clearance on the length. The skill of the people operating them amazes us: they never touch the sides, they never have to go forward or backward to get positioned, they just gently ease into the lock and gently ease out when they’ve locked through.

Here’s the Thailand, moving up the canal. That it’s empty is apparent from how high it is out of the water. They go slowly; Laurie and I walked faster than the boat moved.

Laurie spotted these poppies growing in what is essentially a heap of junk.

All in all, a nice day, a day of getting back into the groove. As a bonus, the weather cleared late in the day and we had a glass or two of rosé sitting outside on the terrace. Sunset here is about an hour later than in Seattle (9:55 tonight), so if the weather is nice (a rarity so far), we can sit out pretty late.