‘Piedaleau’
Welcome to my first Piedaleau blog!!!
Many of you will have followed my previous adventures on Misty Morning. Sadly she is up for sale.
But we are now the proud owners of Piedaleau! (say it out loud, slowly…… and then think about it!).
She is a 14.9m long steel barge. Big, solid and boxy but absolutely lovely inside. A real floating apartment! We looked at quite a few boats – hundreds online and several in the ‘flesh’ in France and UK . We fell in love with Piedaleau immediately and could not be tempted away by anything else. So in Januuary we went to St Jean de Losne where she is moored at Blanquarts and had her surveyed. Needless to say there were some issues but after a fairly stressful week of quote-seeking and discussions with the vendor we completed the purchase and moved on board for a week. It was cold outside but ok inside once we had worked out how to operate the heating!
Our good friend Yves (of Capt’Yves) was our first proper visitor along with Annalies and Isabelle. It was great to be able to show off Piedaleau and we look forward to that bottle of Moet they presented us with!
We will return to Piedaleau in April when we will take her up the Burgundy Canal (242 kms & 196 locks) to Migennes to have her lifted out and her bottom done properly! The joys of boat ownership!! Still, as the surveyor told us, ‘you buy a boat and you get problems’! But all will be good I’m sure.
So, we went home; thought long and hard about Misty Morning; attended boat engine maintenance and electrics courses and visited Kate Boats of Warwick (built Piedaleau) to pick their brains and discuss some issues.
We decided to send Misty Morning home and to put her on sale on the Thames where we hope she will stand a better chance of finding a new owner to love her! Things happened really quickly on this front and we ended up returning to France last week t finish packing her up and sending her on her way. So we are back on Piedalieu for a week or so and I hope I can get this blog out to you all!
Piedaleau 
A real “Gin Palace” you’ve got there!
Nice pic of you and Adrian, too.
See you on the Bourgogne in May!
Don and Cathy Jo
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Hi both!
Congratulations on being the first to post a comment on Piedaleau’s blog!
G & Ts will be served on the upper deck!
Have you bought a boat yet?
Really looking forward to catching up with you on the cut….
J & A xxx
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Hey Jenny and Adrian,
Nice to see your new new ship, great pictures.
We are still thinking about you both, after our trip in France last year. All good rememberings!
The Abraham J. is right now in preparation for the second trip to France and wich will last about 5 1/2 month again. The experience of last year resulted in technical changes for better comfort.
We are leaving around the middle of may and expect to be in St. Jean in the middle of june.
If possible we like to meet you and to see the new “Dreamboat”
Let’s get in contact, if you also like this.
Regards Andries, Corry and Ashley
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Lovely to receive your reply!
And we would love to meet up with you all again this year and to welcome you on board Piedaleau!
We have to take boat to Laroche Migennes (top of Nivernais / river Yonne) for works to be done starting 18th may (due to take 2 weeks) so we will be leaving St Jean mid April. But maybe if you could come down that way we can meet up? It would be great!
Cheers for now
J & A xxx
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Congratulations to both of you! Will you be traveling south on the Nivernais after your haulout at Simon’s in Migennes? I plan to be up that way in July because the Rallye for Les amis de Canal du Nivernais is being held in Chitry les Mines the third week of July. It’s a blast and a good way to meet more people who know how to cook mussels and other good stuff>
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Lovely to hear from you!
And yes we are thinking of going to Chitry for the rally ….. just haven’t got around to doing anything about it yet.
You may just have pushed us into action…….. esp as Adrian will be keen for moules by then!
Looking forward to seeing you there! Xxx
Ps know anyone who needs a spare gas cube thing?
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Can’t remember – it was butane, wasn’t it? Such a deal I had for you!
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Certainly got us out of problem in july! Wouldn’t have any dinner otherwise!
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