The weather turned cooler overnight, which gave us a good sleep. In the morning, Piper barge Ettie arrived (she was moored last night at Choissey) and tied up in front of us. We helped them with their ropes, and then had a bit of a chat, because while we had seen their barge several times this year, we had not yet got to talk with them. As we were talking, a young Swiss guy asked me if I would take a photo of him and his girlfriend with the Basilica in the background. After doing so, we talked for a while and I found out that he came from Thun, just up the Aare River from Bern.

Later in the morning, July Lynne called to ask if we were interested in going to lunch with them and their Aussie friend Suze at L'ecu in Saint Usage. While this would make it three times in three weeks at L'ecu, we couldn't refuse the option of a nice lunch and chat. So, in late morning, we drove over there in their car, only to find that L'ecu was closed, even though it was lunchtime on a weekday. Hopefully, they have not caught the French disease of closing their restaurant during summer so that they can go on holidays! If only they realised that if they stayed open during the busy summer season, they could make enough money to go on holiday anywhere in the world during spring or autumn!! Anyway, since we were already there, we decided to go to one of the riverside cafes in Saint Jean de Losne, and chose the one operated by the Swiss guy at Bistrot la Cotiniére. We had a great lunch, even though it was getting decidedly colder, and Judy had to return to the car to get a blanket for warmth. After most of the diners had gone, the rain started and so we moved our table more under the shelter. But no one was really complaining about the rain, after the recent caniciule. Peter then drove across to Blanquart's to pick up some fan belts for his boat, before we returned to Dole, via the Grand Frais vegetable shop at Choissey.

Overnight I had received an email from one of my students in the PM4CP Project Management course at Taggerty. She is appyling the PM4CP model to a project involving the construction of a heated swimming pool in Alexandra, and was having some problems with the software. So I sat down with a copy of her problem for a few hours, and tried to sort out what was going wrong. It turned out to be a mixture of some data entry errors on her part, and some software problems on my part. So, I advised her of a workaround method for the short term, while I resolved the software issues.

In the evening, Rita and I went for a walk from the canal down to the barrage on the River Doubs. As we approached the suspension bridge crossing the river, we saw someone in black climbing on the bridge, up and along the cables.

By the time we had got to the bridge and crossed to the other side, he was taking a rest at the top of the pylon!

The suspension bridge roughly follows the line of the barrage across the Doubs, which incorporates two sections of Roman arches which used to support a very old bridge across the Doubs.

On the walk back to the boat, we walked between the canal and the river, and this shot shows just how close they are.