Fascinating. One of our neighbours used to go regularly (Dutch, plays keyboard and bass) but I’m sure he’d told me it was done. Glad to see they are still going.
We should be in the village that weekend, so may try to get over there.
Let me know how you go with it, maybe next year but not sure I want to go alone. 
OK, if we go I’ll feed back how it was. Next year will be our 45th anniversary and also start our retirement, so we might try for a proper holiday in August, though it’s by no means sorted.
Wow - many hearty congratulations. You must have been a child groom.
20 and 18. It’s been good so far. 
It’s also not been hard overall, even though we’ve had some challenges.
Didn’t join our rando group yesterday, the forecast was for C38° which was too hot for a little dog (and us). But we used Gigi as our excuse. I advise my wife to use me in a similar fashion if we don’t want to do something - “I’d love to go, but Mark doesn’t want to.”
However the Dutch thought it was a good idea for the short walkers to rent some tractor innertubes and paddle up the Lot to Entraygues (the last time they did that two nearly drowned) while the long walkers could just do a 500m ascent in the Lot Valley and only walk for 10kms. And then those who had survived could meet up for a picnic/
We stayed at home, instead planning to walk the following day along the Lot to the auberge in the next village, but it didn’t work out as we’d planned.
This normally a 2m wide, tarred velo route
Eventually, it got too much, another four kms to the auberge and then we’d have to walk again through all this.
So instead we decided to walk upriver to the next village that way - much more boring , but doable and check out the new resto (both of whose previous incarnations were dire).
Upriver it was another world…
And the resto has la biere la phenicienne on draught which is a lovely summer drink and also pastis 51 should we arrive a little later in the morning.
Could be worse
Today we completed the walk that had to be abandoned last week after the tornado blocked the veloroute. However, yesterday evening we had two hours of orages and marble-sized hailstones, that thankfully didn’t damage the car and possibly helped further clean the rather smelly antique Persian rug that had been airing over a wall in the garden for several days. I know that’s not how the pros do it, having previously posted a surprisingly compelling video link on this.
Anyhow the start seemed promising - cooler than expected, though rather humid. with milky light that doesn’t help photography.
Below is a view of the east end of our village (the white bit in the middle) glimpsed from the side of a disused lock on the Lot. They had wanted to re-open the Lot to navigation for a long way upstream from here, but unfortunately there’s a lot of heavy metals buried in the mud upstream which if disturbed could wreak horrendous environmental havoc not only in the Lot, but the Gironde.
Very soon we came upon new storm damage. I don’t know whether these trees were simply already weakened from last week’s tornado, or were newly exposed following the fall of a large tree that had previously protected them or both. But the storm damage in our stretch of the valley seemed as bad as the week before.
Composition with broken tree -
But this time we were going to make it to the auberge!
Once beyond our narrow valley, everything was much more tranquil
And the rowing club was quieter than usual…
A lot of poles were rather wonky but fortunately electric and fibre was still OK.
The rest of the group had begun walking from a km further east, but we hadn’t wanted to do that because of Gigi and the lack of shade (maybe OK going out, but not coming back). We walked slowly and took lots of photos and eventually they caught up with us -
The auberge is home to many cats - can you spot this one?
I’m sure the old lady who lives here at weekends is going to be very sad when she sees that her lovely old apple tree has been snapped in two
The auberge lady helps run a sort of feral cat sanctuary in a nearby derelict building and it’s surrounded by warning signs " Relentez! Chats baladent ! "
Les baigneurs
And eventually back beyond the storm damage, it’s clear path to our picnic by the Lot…
What’s the origin of the heavy metals problem upstream? It sounds quite dangerous in case one day heavy weather or floods stir up the mud anyway.
Decazeville’s C19/20th industry used to drain into the Lot at Boisse-Penchot (beneath the D840 bridge). The toxic sediment is now buried quite deep and there’s a complex series of height adjustable barrages that regulate the river’s flow.