First chance to get back to the blog and so much has happened but first back to Friday in Mountauban. A beautiful breakfast in the hotel before off o explore the old town but first we went through the joys of finding a doctor for Margaret’s ear problems as they had not been comfortable since the flight over. Decided the channel was blocked up from the nose and some nose drops sorted that. We spent the day just strolling around the city, coffee in the square and a wander up to see our boat.  All very exciting.  The logistics of getting us, our gear and our shopping to the boat the next day took the biggest effort.  We had dinner under the stars back in the square that night, wonderful ambience and strolled back to the hotel for an early night as we were all tired.

Saturday – go to the market, great fun shopping, veggies, cheese, meat coffee.  Lots to taste and all very nice and yummy.  Back to the hotel for a 11 o’clock pick up.  Drop the girls at the supermarket while the boys went on and set up the boat.  The girls got locals excited as they loaded up with beer, wine and water.  All looking good for an early departure when some bloody idiot slices his forefinger left hand.  Blood everywhere, a very deep slice.  We look for a doctor to stitch up as we think it might be quicker than the hospital but in the end decide on hospital.  Dennis the base manager ran us in and got us started in the system. A bit of a noise about not being French and not having a European Card but we offered to pay and showed them our New Zealand passport they seemed happy.  Our chances of being off tonight are looking slim.  When the doctor finally gets around to putting the stitches in he says opps we have a problem.  Tendons have been severed and surgery is required.  He whips the tourniquet off and takes off.  Blood starts pouring out and I have to bunch up the sheet to stop getting covered in it.  When he comes back there is quite a pool of it.  He has arranged an appointment with the surgeon for 9am the next morning for what should only take 3 hours.  He throws in 3 stitches to hold it together and sends me on my way with a prescription for antibiotics and pain killers.  I’m not very happy as you can expect.  All the pharmacies are shut.  After walking to three we decide to order a taxi from someone that only speaks French.  We wait and we wait and have to ring a second time to get someone to arrive.  We manage to find a Pharmacy and head back to the boat to tell Dave & Jan the bad news.  By the time we got back Jan had cooked a beautiful pasta, yummy yum.

Sunday – And we are at the hospital before the allotted hour.  I get shown to a room and after fifty questions from four gorgeous nurses get to put on a gown and hop into a bed.   I get to read a heap of my kindle before being wheeled off to surgery at about 12.30.  I had had a visit from an Anaesthetist telling me he was going to deaden my whole arm but that got downgraded by the surgeon to just my finger.    I got really looked after and it was a lot of fun with the language problems. Ask me sometime about the sign (or maybe body) language to ask me if I had had a number one or two.  I ended up under a blue plastic sheet so did not see what was done and came out with two fingers strapped to a metal plate running down my arm and being told to keep it there for three weeks, bloody great as it almost made that arm almost useless.  Glenda if you are reading this please put me down for three week sick leave from Saturday 6^th.   We got back to Port Canal about 5pm to another great tea from Jan.  I am going to keep her on, pork loin steaks with veggies, another yummy yum yum.

Monday –We have had two nights on the boat and gone no where.  Jan and Dave are very understanding and probably going a bit stir crazy but today we are finally going to be on our way.  Dennis is going to accompany us through the first lock.  I have been given the role of Captain, you would think they would know better wouldn’t you after my effort so far.  Well I was soon going to learn that that driving a Mystique was like driving the Queen Mary.  You had to make the move five minutes before you wanted it to happen, loads of fun and we almost took out the pontoon on our first practise at berthing.  But as often happens we could only get better from there.  We were shown through our first lock and wished good luck.

Typing is very slow with just one hand so thought I had better get this up while I could and had internet.  We are in Buzet at the moment at a Restaurant and it is a rainy Thursday night. .