The French language, as you know, uses gender. Things are either male - le - or female - la. We don't always get this right when we try our mangled French language on the poor unsuspecting locals, but nobody seems to mind, and besides, I've become an expert in the art of slurring to the point where (I believe) I could be saying either. As long as I get away with it...

Anyway, over the past two weeks we have cruised up the male Rhone, the female Saone, along the male Canal du Centre, and now we're on the Canal Lateral alongside the ladylike Loire.

The rivers at least have lived up to their genders. Le Rhone, which we came down last October, is broad-shouldered, strong and, if you get him at the wrong moment, can be a bit of a bully. We saw him in this mood in January and it wasn't a pretty sight, but luckily we weren't cruising at the time, just standing on the banks watching his immense power in awe. You can see why there are so many hydro stations on the river... and no shortage of water to drive the turbines.

It seemed prudent then to wait until Le Bully became more of a pussycat, which he was when we came back up a couple of weeks ago. We stopped at Valence for a weekend (to wait out the manly Mistral) and Lyon for a couple of days (just because we like it there), and then we were onto the more feminine Saone.

We don't know whose job it was to divine the genders of the waterways, but with the Rhone and Saone they got it right. Madamoiselle Saone is far more refined and has better manners than her big brother, plus the weather was lovely and Monsieur Mistral behaved appropriately in female company.

Locks on the other hand are all female, and here - at least on the Rhone and Saone - we think they got it wrong, because they are huge brutes. Or maybe just butch. Either way, they are formidable, even more so going up. Coming down last year, we were cruising 'avalant' - meaning descending, going downstream, so each lock we came to was full, and we cruised in at the top level, then were lowered gently down. They're all controlled by lock keepers in their control towers... unseen entities who are just voices on the VHF channel, both male and female. (Not hermaphrodite; I mean they're EITHER male or female, if you see what I mean. Why am I even explaining this?!)

This time though we were 'montant', meaning we were coming up-river, so each time we came to one of these giant females she would lift up her iron petticoat and we would slide beneath. You can read whatever symbolism you like into this scenario, but I can tell you that there is nothing feminine about it.

Imagine walking into a massive narrow warehouse without a roof, so steep sided that you feel claustrophobic, the stone walls so high that the sky is reduced to a blue band high above, and all around you the dripping of water, the echoes of every sound. Set in the dank walls are floating bollards, to which you tie your boat. Then, behind you, the massive steel door closes, descending on unseen hydraulics, its rows of rivets slowly lowering and finally submerging in the murky waters with a prison-like finality.

Then the real noises begin - clanks, groans, rumblings - as the underwater gates in the upstream doors open and let in the river water. The water boils with eddies and turbulence, the bollards slowly begin to rise, some of them grinding and protesting against their rails, and the downstream door settles groaning against its door jamb, the protest of iron on iron. Some of the noises sound like whales crooning, others are surely what those who stayed onboard the Titanic must have heard - reminiscent of the implosion of the boilers, the creaking and collapse of bulkheads as the enormous pressures of the Atlantic waters sought a way out, the dying groans of a ship in her death throes. There's a Gothic drama to the whole process, an almost-steampunk experience, and if you were to choose a theme it would have to be Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D.

And then, slowly, you rise higher and higher, emerging eventually from the dank shadows of Mordor into the sunlight, and the Lady Lock finally reveals her feminine self as she delivers you safely from the ordeal. Madame Ecluse has protected you. She lowers her barrier, silently this time as the lock is full and there are no echoes, and out you drift, back onto the manly Rhone, or the gentle Saone.

After reaching Chalon sur Saone we finally left the rivers and entered the canal system again, this time going onto the Canal du Centre. The introduction was not pleasant, as the very first lock is also quite deep and industrial, dark and uninviting. It was much smaller than those on the Rhone or Saone, but all the more claustrophobic for that, and we were glad to exit.

From there on we have been treated to a more human process, with visible lock keepers, real people who do real things in plain sight to get you and your boat from one level to the next. If we thought the large locks of the Rhone and Saone were few and far between, the Canal du Centre made up for that, and on one day we went through 24 locks, many with less than a kilometre between them. In some cases itinerant lock keepers oversee three or four locks, and would drive ahead in their company van to prepare the lock for you, thereby giving good service and perhaps emphasising the importance of their jobs. It was nice to be fussed over though, on a more human scale, instead of being a toy in a giant bath.

In the past few days we've left the Centre and got onto the Canal Lateral a la Loire, a very pretty waterway that meanders through what looks like prime English Constable countryside, dotted with white Charolais cattle. The weather's been sunny and warm, and the farmers have been making hay as they should, so we've been cruising past mown fields that give the landscape a park-like feel. The canal is also well-kept and trim.

And the locks themselves couldn't be more different to their river behemoth cousins. Here they're small and charming, often with flower borders and boxes, neat gardens beside the lock cottages, vege gardens with crops of carrots and lettuces, and - perhaps best of all - lock-keepers who actually manually wind open the gates and paddles. There is nothing electronic about their operation. Yet.

For the moment it is messieurs and madames - and occasionally madamoiselles - who look after us, but as we know from our experiences of self-help automated locks on the Canal du Midi, it's probably only a matter of time. However, let's hope luck is on their side, because in French, that's a feminine thing: la bonne chance.