It was still hot in the morning, but we were relieved to see that Thierry had arrived to install the new showers in the two ensuites and the laundry room, which will mean that guests staying in the two smaller bedrooms will now have showers of their own. Jean-Baptiste also arrived to check the blown LED light in the ground floor toilet, and the automatic staircase lights. At first, he just replaced the blown LED, but while he was working on something else, it blew again. So, as expected, it wasn’t just a blown globe, but a problem with the electronics controlling the lighting. So J-B hooked up his PC to the main switchboard and ran some diagnostic tests, after which he did the equivalent of Control-Alt-Delete, and everything seemed to go back to normal. We hope it’s not this tricky every time something goes wrong with the lighting.

As we went down to the Tarn to move Kanumbra back up to the canal, we met up with Laura who told us she had a little accident last week and fractured her eye socket. Apparently, she was on another boat carrying her little dog, when she tripped and, not wanting to let the dog go, fell to the deck below, hitting her head. A quick visit to the doctor, who diagnosed the problem, and she has been resting for a few days. Luckily, it seems to be healing well, with little bruising. But she has little feeling in her lips on that side of her face, which the doctor says is normal after such accidents, and will take a couple of months to be restored.

We had made an appointment for 1100h to go up the double-locks, and were out on the Tarn five minutes early, manoeuvering to stay in place. However, at the appointed time, there were two other boats in the locks coming down to the river, so we had to circulate back and forth for another 15 minutes - good practice in controlling the boat without bowthrusters! Eventually, we got our turn to go up and moor in our usual place opposite the Capitainerie Office. When we got there we were helped with the ropes by a dutchman, Jack from Ademis (which was moored in front of us on the Tarn). We had a chat with him for a while, then packed up the barge in preparation for our trip to Switzerland.

We were originally intending to go to Switzerland in August for Frank’s 95th birthday party (he actually turned 95 in April, but delayed his party so that as many family could attend as possible). However, to enable some family from outside Switzerland to attend and because Lothar (his youngest son) was now heading back to Africa in August to work on another aid program, it was decided to hold the party a bit earlier and then have him come over to Moissac for a while for a short holiday while his health was still good enough for him to travel.

We had decided to break the trip to Switzerland, by staying overnight in the town of Cluny - a town about 50 km north of Lyon, founded around 900AD and famous for its religious connections with several Popes over the years. We had booked a hotel there with Booking.com, and were lucky enough to get the last remaining room. On the way, we encountered roadworks which had slowed traffic to a crawl. So trusting our GPS, we went away from the main road to try and bypass the delay, and detoured via the town of Chapeau, which turned out to be a lovely surprise. This has happened a few times now, with unexpected little gems being hidden away in rural countryside.

When we got to Cluny and found the hotel, we realised that getting the last available room is not always a good thing - they are often the last available room for a reason. This one was small, dated, with no ventilation and above a noisy intersection. As a traffic engineer, I like traffic, but not when I’m trying to go to sleep and have to leave the windows open in order to get some air on a hot night! Oh well, we are only staying one night. Luckily, the hotel restaurant was much better than their rooms, so we had a very nice meal (as did lots of other people, most of whom were not staying at the hotel).

After dinner, we decided to go for a walk around Cluny. We drove into town (it was a bit too far to walk there and back), and then walked around the old part of town. It was an absolute delight. The old cathedral (which was once part of the largest church in Europe) was looking good in the evening light, as was a tower on Rue du 11 Auot 1944 (commemorating the bombardment of Cluny during WW2).

Fronting the market square was a majestic building which was once the Papal Headquarters.

Everywhere you looked were visual highlights, including this open window in a house through which we spied the chandelier. The window was probably open because it was a warm night, and the view of the fountain and another old church (still showing bombing damage) in the square below was quite attractive in the evening light.

On the walk back to the car, we got an unexpected surprise. We had noticed earlier that there were a lot of equestrian grounds in Cluny, including the National Centre for Equestrian Performance (my rough translation of the French). As we walked past we could hear music and see lights on the magnificent stables in the background. So we climbed up onto the stone fence along the roadway and were rewarded with a great sight. A rehearsal was underway with a couple of horses, including the palamino that features on all the brochures advertising shows at the Centre. The rider was in full uniform and she was putting the horse through all its paces, including the loud music, flashing lights, and raucous applause from the stagehands including stamping of feet on the metal grandstands (all to ensure that the horse wouldn’t be spooked when that happened in a real performance). We stayed in the shadows for 20-30 minutes and enjoyed a fabulous performance, all for free!

But eventually, we were forced to return to the hotel to start our “enjoyment” of a hot noisy night.