Decize Music Festival (French 'T' in the Park!!') - Friday 27th-Sunday 29th July, 2012

We headed to Decize on Friday afternoon, to enjoy their annual music festival on the banks of the River Loire. Very handy to have moved GG II there just in time! We enjoyed a lovely meal in the hotel/restaurant at the Marina on Friday night and then on Saturday morning, James was going to address the battery problem we have on GG II, but whilst watching a DVD on Friday night, we discovered we had a real problem with lights dimming and batteries not charging on shore power. James was up early on Saturday morning to see if he could get to the root of the problem, and quickly thought the problem lay with our battery charger and perhaps also a dud battery, but after trying his very best to fix things, he decided to engage some professional help and a marine electrician arrived about lunchtime on Saturday. After a lot of checking things over he came to the conclusion that our battery charger was knackered and needed to be replaced. We also think one of the batteries has a problem too, so we will likely need to replace this as well. Thank god this happened now and not on our holidays! The marine electrician is coming back with a new charger and along with James, they will have the problem fixed the week leading up to the start of our holiday. Fingers crossed. It was not pleasant having no running water on board but at least we had great facilities in the Marina for showers etc. After putting the cockpit back to normal and feeding our new found friends - a family of cute little ducks - (boats are great places until you need to get into the engines and then seats, tables, carpets all need lifted up!) we headed to the music festival for some chilling out. The first band were traditionally french and were quite good, the french seemed to enjoy dancing to them anyway, and then it was a band called the Outside Track, who all came from Canada, Ireland and Scotland. They were excellent, and everyone seemed to have fun clapping along. A few beers and sausage and chips later, after listening to the band, we headed to the Stade Nautique for 18 holes of crazy golf - well done James who won the 10 euros! At least that meant he paid for the cokes and ice cream, yum! The next bands were on from 8pm, but just as we finished golf, the heavens let loose and torrential rain came roaring down. Thank the lord we were near the van! After that, the crowds headed home, which was a shame really, we hung around for half an hour, but because of the rain, things were running behind and we decided just to head back to the boat, as we were tired. It was a real shame for the organisers, after such wonderful hot weather for days, it decides to pour down on their festival. We think we are going to enjoy having the boat at Decize, there is plenty to do there and we are right on the Canal Lateral a Loire and Nivernais, for exploring.