Rita called the locksmith this morning, only to find that the number she contacted him on last night now belonged to a car hire company, who knew nothing about a locksmith – go figure! Most of the other numbers from the internet site were either disconnected, or on holidays. After talking with Kaz, we finally found a locksmith in Nicholas de la Grave, who promised to be at the house in 20 minutes! He must not be French ☺. But he arrived on time, and could not find anything wrong with the front door lock, after he used his bundle of keys to open the back door. He suggested we get a lockable lock for the workshop door at the back, so that we can open that one if we ever have problems with the front door again. After he left, I experimented with the front door lock and found the problem. If you turn the knob so that the bar on the knob is horizontal then the key will open it as expected. But if you turn it and leave the bar vertical, the key will not be able to turn it either way. Not sure whether this is a feature or a fault, but at least we now know what to do when locking the door from the inside (and we have this webpage to show us which is the right way and the wrong way to lock it).

                      Openable from Outside with Key                                         Non-Openable from Outside with Key

In the afternoon the plumber arrived and we had a long talk about our options. He examined the energy report done before the purchase, and was amazed at the gas consumption for the furnace. He suggested that the first thing we should do is to put insulation in the roof, then fit double-glazed windows, in an attempt to lower the heat loss in winter. He also suggested that rather than trying to fix the existing furnace, we should get an energy efficient gas condensation furnace. He will arrange with the guy from Dietrich (the furnace brand) to come out and give us a free consultation about our furnace options given the size and age of the house. He estimated that a complete new system would cost no more than 8000euro, and save about 1500euro per year in energy costs. Also got some useful contacts from him for double-glazed windows and guttering repairs.

During the day, another Aussie barge appeared in port. Colibri is a beautiful hotel barge that does charter cruises on the Midi and Garonne Canals, and is an excellent example of what can be done with a 38m peniche. So, if you have a cool 14,000euro in pocket change, you and three of your friends can take a 6 day trip on this barge, eating, drinking and relaxing in luxury.

Later in the day, we went out to Intermarche and finally stocked up on food and other supplies. Ended up not going to Fish’n’Chips night because I’d had an upset stomach most of the day, and the thought of greasy fish and chips did not sound like the right thing to do.