Well today was the day for cleaning the roof of the cabin in preparation for painting. But before I did that, I went across to the Capitainerie to make sure they had some paint. Kaz and Iain weren’t there initially, so I went for a walk along the canal to the Cacor Viaduct over the Tarn (does anyone get the impression I’m putting off doing the painting?).

On the way up the canal, I spied the Pigeonaire House where Lisa stayed with her family during the band tour, and so I couldn’t resist taking a photo that I could put on her Facebook page to remind her of last year.

I then continued up to the bridge over the Tarn and spent some time just looking at the water.

On the way back, I stopped a couple of times to get shots of the canal as it approaches Moissac.

As I approached the Capitainerie Office again I saw the port duck Dexter taking a rest on the rudder of the Port Capitainerie's barge. She has been around the port since we bought Kanumbra in 2010, and seems to be ageing well.

When I finally got to speak with Kaz and Iain about the paint, it seems that the one they now have in stock has a different serial number to what I used last time, but should still be the same colour. Iain advised using a wire brush to roughen the surface and remove any flaky paint after using the Karcher spray, so I will go get one of those before I start this afternoon. He also asked why I was painting at the start of the season, rather than at the end of the season.

Just as I was about to start cleaning the deck, Iain called from the other side of the canal to see whether I knew where Thierry (our plumber) was, since he was supposed to be at the port that morning. He had not been able to get him or Nico on the phone. So I went up to the house to see if he was there. No one was there so I sent Miyu a text message asking if she knew. She didn’t, but she reminded me about Massa’s last music class with Veronique at 1600hr, so I headed there instead of going back to clean the deck (how do you spell procrastination?). He had a great time, and showed some talent (for a one year old) in being able to keep a beat with the shakers, clap sticks and on the drums. He thoroughly enjoyed his chance to play the piano with Veronique.

Since I had little food on the barge, I decided to do a run out to Intermarche to stock up on supplies that evening. When I had finished shopping, I decided to fill the tank since the Scenic was running low on fuel. Since Intermarche has a self-serve after-hours fuel station, I decided to do it there. I was very pleased with myself as I remembered all the procedures from last year (even in French) as I paid with my credit card then started to fill. However, I had only just begun to fill when I realised that something was wrong. The nozzle was too loose in the fuel tank - yikes, I am filling with unleaded fuel, not diesel!!  My mind had done a double-negative as I knew I should not be doing what I always did at home with the car and fill with petrol. But I had done a negative of what I should be doing here. Luckily, I had only just started before I realised the error. So I immediately stopped, paid for that purchase, then started again with diesel and filled the tank. Looking at the receipts, I saw that I had used between 1 and 2 litres of petrol and about 50 litres of diesel.

Having heard lots of horror stories about what happens when petrol is used in a diesel engine, I immediately started Googling when I got home to see what I should do. The online advice spanned a wide spectrum of ideas, from absolute catastrophe to “don’t worry”. After much reading, the consensus seemed to be that less than 5% petrol would probably be OK (I had 3-4%), but that you should try to dilute the mixture by refilling with diesel as often as possible over the next few weeks, thereby gradually reducing the % petrol. If the engine starts spluttering badly (or the engine seizes!), then you should do something more. I guess time will tell.