it was hot again overnight, so I was already awake when it came time to listen to the AFL game between Hawthorn and Essendon early on Saturday morning. I always enjoy these games, since my son barracks for Essendon and there’s always a few emails going backwards and forwards this week of the year. The year, it is a critical game for both teams, since a loss effectively ends chances of playing in the finals. After a seesaw struggle for most of the game, the Hawks kicked away in the third and fourth quarters, only to have Essendon score three of the last four goals to almost snatch the game. In the end, the Hawks defeated the Dons 107-103 to keep their finals chances alive. I didn’t have the heart to send a gloating email after the game, since I knew how David would be feeling. Saturday saw close games all day in the AFL, with the Hawks 4-point victory being the second largest margin all day out of 5 games.

In the morning, I attached the hangers to all the photos we had got printed for the Arts Expo. As I was finishing this, we saw Stuart arriving to continue the Hilda May handover to the new owners, with the son of the new owner looking pretty settled on the cabin roof. Stuart has done a great job for the handover, fixing and replacing many things on the boat and preparing a multi-page document covering operations in every room of the boat. If only all boat-sellers could be as diligent.

In the afternoon, I went with Nico in his truck out to the storage garage, to pick up the unused shower cubicles from La Maison and the catamaran for he and Miyu to sell on the French equivalent of eBay. We figured it was better for them to get some benefit from them, rather than just have them gathering more dust over the years in storage.

After that, Rita and I went shopping to stock up the boat and Irene’s house for the coming weeks, since we knew we would be far too busy to find time to do more shopping over the Festival and concerts period.

Later that day, Drumsara came back from the west, and as he does for all port arrivals and departures, Bill from Lazybones gave them a serenading blast on the bugle.

It didn’t take long before Greg and Bridget had invited several onto the rear deck of Drumsara for a few drinks and to hear about their adventures out west, especially when they reversed down the Baise for several kilometres after the lock into Nerac was blocked. As we were chatting, I thought I heard a call of “Tony”, and on turning around I saw Andre and Francoises (son-in-law and daughter of our neighbours in Rue Gambetta) standing outside Kanumbra. So I bid farewell to Drumsara and went to talk to them with Rita. We told them about the Festival and concerts next week, and arranged to meet them over that period.

Because it was still hot, we decided to prepare dinner in the cool of Irene’s kitchen, and later that evening went up to the Parvis, to catch the final concert before we play there next week. But since we have a big travel day tomorrow, we decided not to stay too long and instead get a good night’s sleep (or as much as the weather would allow).