Alouette is a Luxemotor barge built in 1910 in Zwartsluis, Holland. She was first used as a cattle transporter, and later as a shrimp fishing boat. In 2002, she was lovingly converted by a British couple into a liveaboard barge. We are her third owners - Randy and Deborah, two Americans from Colorado who escaped corporate life in search of an adventure. After a few years of searching for the right adventure, we discovered the barging life. Having sailed for most of our adult lives, it seemed a perfect fit. We spent another year looking for the right barge and in the summer of 2010 found her in Roanne, France. We've renamed her Alouette - the Lark. And so in her 100th year, together with our two Russian Blue cats, we're shoving off for a life on the canals and rivers of Europe.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

WiFi blues!

We made it back into port in October, but the WiFi in the port doesn't seem to be adequate to carry the traffic with all of the boats now back and using it.  We still have our 3G key, but its slower than what we're used to in the states, and I've been having a hard time trying to upload photos to the blog, hence no postings for a while, though I have lots of posts written in draft form.

All is well with us.  I managed to catch the nasty cold that was going around the port and have been suffering with it for 3 weeks now but am finally nearly back to normal, whatever that is.  We had a great visit with our friend Catherine Carpenter from Denver and had lots of fun finding the fixings for a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, which we prepared the Sunday before T-day so we could enjoy it with Catherine before she returned to Denver.  Our good friends from Australia, Laurel and Andrew, joined us for their first taste of an American Thanksgiving.

Our port association arranged another beaujolais tasting event this November, this time we traveled by bus, visiting most of the 10 Cru Beaujolais villages and arriving at the vineyard of Guy Trichard for a tasting, and lunch.



We're now decorating the boat for the first of several festivals in the port, the arrival of St. Nicholas, by boat, the evening of December 6th.  Many of the liveaboards in port are busy hanging lights for the event.  It will be interesting to see what happens when we all turn them on for St. Nick!

More to come...hopefully with pictures . . .happy December everyone!
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