We stopped for a day at Sens, on the river Yonne, which is dominated by Sens Cathedral, an enormous structure. Unlike Paris's Notre Dame, Sens Cathedral is closely surrounded by shops and other buildings, to the point where you can't stand back far enough to get it all in shot when trying to take a photograph. It is one of those neck-craning things - you can look up, but not at.

The interior was cavernous, as you'd expect. Liz and I are a bit cathedraled-out - there are so many in France, and so many dating back to the 11th century - that (sorry to say) we are somewhat overdosed, or perhaps more kindly, spoilt for choice, and so mostly we choose to ignore rather than explore. We will probably burn in hell.

But in its defence, Sens Cathedral's claim to fame is that it was the first to use flying buttresses in its design, which makes us think it might also have been part of the inspiration for Ken Follet's novel 'Pillars of the Earth'. Liz's claim to fame is that she once had dinner at Ken Follet's London home, having been at Oxford with his daughter. Okay, end of name-dropping. Whatever, the huge vaulted ceilings and vast cool interior space were welcome on a 30+ degree day. Cheers God.

Sens also offered the usual collection of shops (all French towns seem dominated by hairdressers, tobacconists, and banks) but also some charming narrow oldish streets with nice examples of 16th. century half-timbered houses. We took photos and bought ice creams.

There was a convenient BP service station opposite our moorings so we topped up with gazole (diesel), carrying the fuel in jerry cans across the road to the boat. Buying fuel canalside from actual marina fuel depots is prohibitively expensive. By far and away the cheapest fuel option is to find moorings near a supermarket that has a service station attached. The difference in price can be as much as 40 cents a litre. The BP station wasn't as cheap as a supermarket chain, but it was still preferable to a marina pump. There was a supermarket a short bike ride away, so we bought some trout, two for just over four Euros. Non nom.

Back on deck we watched a man in a bright pink polo shirt meet with a Muslim woman in a basically-black burqa but accessorised with pink sleeves, pink headscarf, pink shoes and matching pink handbag. Her daughter was in a pink and white dress with pink shoes. All the pinks were of the same horribly-bright hue - a truly shocking pink. In fact, a pink so shocking as to require a censor's rating, and R18 wouldn't be high enough. We wondered if today was some sort of religious festival, National Pink Day or similar. Unfortunately the world is so on-edge these days that I can't comment further on the garb for fear of attracting a fatwah. But I will say that, beliefs aside, it was a fashion crime of the highest order, and surely transgressed a religious dress-code of some sort. We called her Burqa Barbie, though only between ourselves.

On the hire boat next to us were two youngish parents and three kids, two aged about three and five, the other a new mewling baby. They were Cycling Parents, and had the obligatory bike trailer for the two youngest. It looked like an oxygen tent on wheels. We observed their activities - as you do when moored - with casual interest. The parents didn't smile much. Come to think of it, we rarely see families on boats smile much at all. A few days earlier we had watched as a hire boat moored in front of us, the two teenage girls on board looking as angry as you could without exploding as they reluctantly and petulantly helped tie the ropes. Steam was almost visibly rising from their pretty heads, but the dad seemed blissfully unaware, an ability of most dads when faced with teenage fury.

And so we said au revoir to Sens and its lack lf fashion-sens, and moved a short distance along the river to Villeneuve sur Yonne. Alas, other boats already there prevented us mooring alongside convenient power or water, but next day once one of the boats had left we repositioned to be closer to the shore power outlet, which was free. This isn't just us being stingy... having shore power means we can use 220 volts to power our boiler, microwave, kettle, toaster, sandwich-toaster and fan without draining our batteries. It also recharges the batteries that we have on board, so if power's available we take it. Merci beaucoup.

At Villeneuve sur Yonne we met Bob and Maureen, he 62 she 52. They were English, and were on a share-boat called Dorney, a Dutch Barge but modern, only about 14 years old. We had them aboard for drinks and chat.

Bob was a twelfth shareholder in the boat, which sounds like an administrative nightmare, but he assured us it all worked smoothly, the various owners getting together once a year for their 'AGM' at a farm in England, and each using the boat for a set amount if time on a rotational basis. He and Maureen were towards the end of their three-week stint, heading for Auxerre.

Theirs was a bitter-sweet story. Both had lost their partners to illness in the previous two years. They met while visiting at the same hospice, so in a way it was death that brought their lives together. Bob had lots of experience with boats, including racing yachts, and was a mine of information. However, once again we were given conflicting advice as to what qualifications we needed to cruise the French waterways. Bob insisted it was the ICC, an International Certificate of Competency, whereas the brokers we bought Liberty from said none were needed because Liberty was French-registered. One of these days we'll sort it out, and anyway we intend to do a boating course once back in England. We also heard from Bob of a boatie being fined £500 in France for having an out-of-date fire extinguisher, and others who had been breathalyzed by police while in a lock. Lots to worry about!

Liz and I are now increasingly nervous, especially as we are approaching the end of our year-long adventure and have, so far, got away with having no qualifications, and fire extinguishers with no dates on them. Luckily we haven't been breathalyzed, as we'd surely fail that one!

Water at Villeneuve was a bit trickier than the power... there was just one robinet (tap) sunk into the ground, with a thread gauge too big for our hose. However, next morning Bob and Maureen lent us a dinky rubber adaptor while they went off shopping. I fitted it, turned it on, and watched in awe as it popped off the upward-facing outlet and created an unofficial yet spectacular riverside fountain. Problem was the tap to turn it off was right next to the outlet, so I had my second shower of the morning as I wrestled with it. Liz stood on the deck holding the other useless end of the hose and laughed. I am so lucky to have such love and support.

We flagged the water away, I changed shirts, and we departed, leaving the adaptor on Bob's boat. He subsequently told us that he'd come back and used it with ease, and stayed dry. Tchah. Pity Liz didn't have the camera handy for my watery escapade though, it would have been a great photo.

And speaking of photos, we watched a French family pose for a group shot on the quayside. As the camera clicked they all - to our amusement - said 'Cheese!' and not 'Fromage'. This took us by surprise somewhat, as the French in general are not quick to adopt English words and phrases, but perhaps it's understandable when you consider that saying 'Fromage' would result in a group pic in which at best everyone would look like goldfish and at worst like angry soccer hooligans. But why don't the French just say 'Brie'? It would be just as effective, and a lot more local.

Next day we set off in lovely warm and calm conditions, which meant it was easy to see anything unusual on the river, so it was a doddle to spot a tiny yet determined disturbance in the water ahead, crossing our bows from left to right. It was a snake. I throttled back and Liz and I leapt into Wildlife Photographer mode, our cameras clicking furiously. The snake was not inclined to pose for photos - it certainly wasn't about to say 'Brie' - and continued its cross-river swim unperturbed. Later we looked at the images, and although of no great size it was quite a beautiful thing, with sort-of tiger stripes. Subsequent research revealed we had been scrambling over shooting a harmless common grass snake. Boo, hisssssss.

We had lunch in warm sunshine, about 30 degrees according to the thermometer. From here we intend to continue south in search for a place to leave Liberty while we nip back to Merseyside to furnish our new apartment - if indeed we can settle the whole thing by then (bloody lawyers!) - and to look for a suitable wintering-over spot for the boat.

Meanwhile we headed for Cezy, with Bob and Maureen following. It was only a short journey, and we reached a split in the river. The main route went to the left, but Bob had recommended a nature mooring up the right arm at Cezy. There was an iron suspension bridge across the river beyond which boats aren't supposed to go, but the mooring was before then. It was a delightful spot, a wooden platform with proper bollards, shaded by trees, and with picnic tables on shore. No buildings around, peaceful.

The mooring however wasn't very big, so we rafted Liberty up against Dorney. Rafting up is not without its issues though... read on!

Being a Saturday the small town of Cezy was closed, apart from a brasserie and the ubiquitous Tabac. It was gorgeously hot. The Yonne river looked clean and inviting, so I went for my first swim off the back of the boat. That's what the swim platform is for after all. The water was lovely. I wasn't the only one - there were others swimming off the river banks further upstream.

We spent a pleasant lazy day, and then in the late afternoon a hire boat cruised in looking for a mooring. The four crew were Swiss and asked if they could raft up against us, so Liberty ended up sandwiched between the two boats. It was okay though, the Swiss were pleasant, and they plus Bob and Maureen all came on board and we managed to squeeze on the aft deck for a few drinks.

The etiquette of rafting up seems to be that if you arrive at moorings and they are full, it is up to you to ask whether you can raft up against someone else's boat. They can then say yes or no, but some marinas and haltes don't allow doubling-up. Rafting-up isn't difficult - the new boat simply ties up to the next boat's cleats - but having a boat moored alongside you does block your view, and it means that the second boat's crew has to cross the other boat when they want to go ashore.

But it pays to be polite when asked. A Kiwi friend who does two months' boating in France every year, told us a story of a rafting-up situation that went horribly wrong. There was one boat already moored, when a man came along in his boat and asked to raft up alongside. However, the first boatie wasn't keen, worrying maybe that his cleats might not be strong enough. This sent the new arrival into a rage, and he roared off angrily at full throttle. Only problem was, he had to slow down to go under a low bridge, at which point his wake caught up with him, lifted his boat and smashed it against the underside of the bridge. Oops.

Moral of the story - literally and figuratively - don't make waves.

(Another way of looking at it is karma: what goes around comes around. If the water had been karma his boat would have been okay...)