Having fixed the leaky propellor shaft we made a short excursion onto the Bourgogne Canal and tied up at the mooring at Laroche-Migennes. Mid-evening we were disturbed by a knocking on the hull. Thinking it was the local marina official wanting payment we were reluctant to respond, but in fact discovered it was boaties Bob and Maureen who had dropped by in their car to say goodbye. They came aboard along with Harvey their dog for cups of tea (them, not Harvey) and it was lovely to be able to round off our recent encounter before they headed back to Blighty.

Later we settled in for the night. The mooring however was directly opposite the railway yards so our sleep was punctuated with passing freight trains, all the more disturbing as it was warm and we wanted to sleep with the windows open. At around 3am I heard Liz closing the windows, muttering, 'I've had enough of trains!' I agreed.

Some days later we learned that the rail yards had been on the hit-list of the Allies during the Second World War, since the yards plus the confluences of the Yonne and the canals made Laroche-Migennes a strategic target. Legend has it that the Allied bombing was spot-on target, even to the point of hitting an ammunition train in the railyards. We were tempted to call in an air strike the night we were there too, as the lack of sleep was to take its toll later.

But morning dawned hot and sunny so we set off in good spirits back along the Yonne river for Auxerre, a pleasant journey in which, for once, all the locks were set in our favour. We reached Auxerre mid-afternoon and moored up on the quay alongside the town - a place that everyone had recommended to us.

However, after an interrupted night's sleep we weren't in the mood to instantly explore; Liz had a nap while I caught up on emails etc. But late afternoon I set off on a bike to have a brief look around town, which lived up to all the recommendations. It is lovely (see pic) with winding cobbled streets, old houses, churches and cathedrals, bars and restaurants aplenty, and a general sense of bonhomie and ambience. The fact that it was about 28 degrees helped.

But, once back on the boat Liz and I had a falling-out over how best to resolve our apartment-buying dilemma in Liverpool. Despite having an offer on an apartment accepted back in the first week of June, here we were on the cusp of August still with no resolution... nothing signed, no agreement, no deposit paid and no completion date agreed.

None of this was our fault... we had been pushing the process as best we could from France, but our conveyancing lawyer in Liverpool was claiming that he was unable to get any responses from the apartment building management company, which was holding up the process, plus the vendors' solicitors were 'on holiday'. To say this was increasing our tension levels is an understatement, as we had already booked to fly back to Liverpool on 20 August, feeling sure that by then we would have the keys to 'our' apartment. And yet, with three weeks to go, we still didn't actually own the place.

So, despite being in lovely Auxerre, moored on a quayside with restaurants and even a live jazz band playing virtually right outside our boat, Liz and I spent the early evening vehemently disagreeing on how to manage the property purchase. I wanted to go in guns blazing while she wanted to take a softly-softly approach. She thought I was being a bully, and I thought she was being a marshmallow.

We separated to opposite ends of the boat to fume. Meanwhile on the quayside the whole of Auxerre was in party mood, sitting on the grass or at outdoor restaurant tables, chatting, laughing, listening to the Parisian swing jazz music and having a much better time than we were.

The Dutch are fantastic at designing and building boats - everything has a useful purpose, and there are nooks and crannies for storage in every conceivable space, but there is absolutely no room for arguments.

So within half an hour we made up, and I'm glad we did because the evening was fabulous. We sat on the sharp-end in ringside seats and watched as the band - a family ensemble if our French was correct - played tunes by Stéphane Grapelli and Django Reinhardt, along with other more jazzy numbers to great acclaim from the assembled Auxerroise. It was a calm, balmy evening, one of those out-of-a-bag evenings, so to spoil it with a spat would have been unforgivable. Instead we sat companionably with our two hurricane lamps adding ambience, drank wine and chilled out to the live music.

To hell with lawyers. They can wait. As John Lennon sang, 'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans'.