Another rainy morning in Moissac, so I didn’t even bother trying to go up to the Sunday Market. In the afternoon, it cleared a little, and it even looked like some sun might break through, so I decided to go for a walk along the canal to the house to see if any of the keys left on the barge would allow me to gain entry (Nico having taken his keys when he drove over to Brittany for the weekend). Perhaps I could take my time and wander through the house to get more photographs.

As I approached the house, I saw a flock of ducks on the canal and so quickly took a picture to send to the Michael Leunig Appreciation Page on Facebook, who had issued a request for duck photos, given that ducks were such a key component of Leunig cartoons. As I was taking the photo, it started to rain again and so I made a dash for the house in the hope that I could get inside, but alas none of the keys I had would get me inside. So I took shelter on the leeward side of buildings until the rain passed, then walked up to the Railway Station to get a photo of the roof of the house (to see how much it had changed with the repositioned skylights). Clearly, they are different from before, but since our house is the highest in the street, they are not visible from anywhere except the hill on which the Railway Station is located.

On my walk back home, I encountered a situation that has happened a few times while out walking, when a car pulled up in the street next to me and a head appeared in the window asking for directions (in French). The first few times this happened I was thrown a bit, but now that I know that the question is always the same, I just listen and hope to recognise a place name. This time I heard “Toulouse”, so I was able to say in English and with hand gestures to just turn right and go over the bridge (hoping they would then see the signs to the motorway and Toulouse). Then I did what everyone does after giving directions to strangers; I kept walking and then turned off the road I was on to minimise the chances of them finding me again in case the directions were wrong!

Normally, when barge people get together and start talking about barges, you can bet that within 15 minutes they are talking about toilets! Well, this year’s blog has been running for 6 days and I haven’t mentioned toilets once. But I’m about to break that silence. This afternoon, I discovered that the macerator was not working. On pressing the button, the water entered the bowl OK, but the macerator did not kick in - it just made the same noise every time “click-click-ping”, with a few seconds between each sound. Will have to talk to Iain about it in the morning.

After going on a self-imposed diet to ensure I didn’t need to test the macerator, I realised that tonight was the Final of the Soccer World Cup. I searched around the internet and found some free streaming sites, but they were continually losing reception or being interrupted by ads, so after enduring a scoreless first half I gave up and went to bed. After learning the next morning that it went scoreless until the 26th minute of extra time, I was glad I went to bed. Sleeping was much more exciting. I don’t know how so many people can get so excited about a game in which so little happens.