Yea, a sunny day!

Up early to listen to the Hawks beat the Suns; after trailing by 17 midway through the third quarter, it looked like a major upset was on the cards. But then the Hawks woke up and went on to win by 26 points. Went for walk up to market; lots more stalls than yesterday, lots of clothes stalls, but still no beanies; moral of the story, bring a beanie from home next time. Hope I won’t need one for the rest of the season! Listened to bluegrass band warming up in Abbey Square – sounded good.

Back to barge to do some reading, but fell asleep after the early morning awakening. Woken by Iain knocking at the door – he had contacted the guy from Castelsarassin, who said he will bring the car to the port at 4pm for an inspection. The car inspection went well. A nice Moroccan bloke with two small kids came to the port, and Iain and I had a good inspection and test ride in the car. Sounds OK, and looks mechanically sound, according to Iain.  A few dings and scratches on the rear bumper, but nothing major considering the price (8000e). They will get a Control Technique (Roadworthy Certificate) and a grease and oil change before the sale. They would like a deposit of 70e to cover the CT, just in case we back out of the deal. Rita then phoned the wife to confirm the deal (in French) and get the banking details for the direct transfer. All now seems OK, and I have paid him the 70e deposit, and he has sent through his IBAN and BIC. As we shook hands on the deal, I promised his kids a ride on the barge after the deal goes through (or at least that's what I hope I promised; maybe I agreed (in French) to swap the car for the barge!). At least the number plate ends with the correct initials.

I saw a review of a book on Brain Pickings Weekly (a Sunday night email newsletter from the Brain Pickings website) about procrastination and practical hinderances to creative work (Manage your Day-to-Day), so I immediately went and bought the book, then fixed the desk in the study so that it could be used for writing on the laptop (by removing the raised board along the front edge, which prevents you from typing for a long time without cutting off the circulation in the wrists). It's only really a small impediment, but it's the sort of practical thing that's easily changed that they talk about in one section of the book. The Before and After photos are shown below:

Now I can really get started on finishing the second edition of the Survey Methods book!  

Since it was still sunny, I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the wheelhouse roof in preparation for painting. A messy and awkward job, involving using the ladder/gangplank to spread my weight on the roof when up there.