D-Day has arrived - the start of the 2018 Moissac Fêtes des Plaisanciers. The day started fine and sunny…

and the full complement of barges was now moored on the Tarn Quai, or in their other locations.

But before the festivities began this afternoon, there was still some work to be done, drawing up the registration sheets and preparing the name tags, as well as getting in some practice with Dindi Moon and also with KickShins, on an encore number that we planned to perform together. Unfortunately, I was not feeling too well, probably as a result of eating too much raw cheese at last night’s birthday party. As a result, I kept getting stomach cramps, which is not good when you’re trying to rehearse. So, thinking about later in the day, I gave up on practice and went back to the barge to relax and try getting some sleep.

By early afternoon, I was feeling a bit better, so I got up and prepared for the Fêtes opening activities. The proceedings started with some traditional French music from a group of trad musicians who were in Moissac that week for a series of workshops, and this gave them the chance to perform in public, while Fêtes participants were registering and getting their name-tags. Soon, the band had many people up and dancing.

Rita and I then did our welcoming duo, with Rita translating everything I said into French (and vice versa when she said things that I had forgotten to say). As always, it gave rise to some interesting translations.

Once the opening formalities had finished, we headed down to the studio provided by the local Arts Association "l’Art S’invite à Moissac”, where the Arts Expo was taking place. Local artists and those on barges had contributed about 40 exhibits, which had been assembled into the Arts Expo by Helen Gough and a team of local volunteers.

Most of the exhibits were not related to barging, but I entered one of a photo on canvas by Australian friend Peter Court, of barges in the sunset at Auxonne (our winter port for 2018-19). It was one of the first you saw as you entered the studio, and certainty caught your attention.

After about an hour of looking at exhibits and chatting with people, we took our leave and headed down the road to Le Sunbeam. On the way, ex-Mayor Nunzi stopped his car beside us to have a chat, and see how we were going with the Carte de Séjour application. We explained the situation and told him we had another appointment at the Prefecture next week. He promised to follow up with his contacts inside the organisation.

We had no sooner settled down with a cool drink at Le Sunbeam, when someone started talking to Rita saying that we should come back to the Arts Expo, because the current Mayor of Moissac, Jean-Michel Henryot, was at the studio and wanted to meet the Fêtes organisors. So we left our drinks and headed back, where Rita had a good chat with him, and we invited him to join us on Kanumbra on the Saturday Flotilla up the River Tarn. He seemed very pleased with the invitation and asked if he could bring his wife with him. Naturally, we agreed, since this was totally in line with our objective of building a stronger relationship between the barging and local communities.

As we walked back to Le Sunbeam again, we were intercepted by another reporter from La Depeche, who had been accompanying the Mayor. He wanted to ask lots of questions about the Fêtes for another article that La Depeche wanted to run that weekend. It seems that our objective of getting more local coverage for barging activities is being achieved.

Finally, we settled down to finish our drinks at Le Sunbeam, and to listen to Nick and Annette open the entertainment program for the evening, followed by the Brewer Brothers.

In the meantime, Rhianna was getting into the swing of things, by volunteering to work in the Curry Kitchen (given her chef experience). The curry was delicious, but soon thereafter I started to feel crook again (totally unrelated to the curry), and so given that I had to be OK for the big day tomorrow, I decided to give the karaoke a miss and go back to the barge again. Needless to say, the Karaoke carried on in full swing despite my absence.

It was still going strong, as I drifted off to sleep, with some new voices (Roy & Greg), DJ Tony Kelly, and some old voices (Sally & Iain).