After two days of intermittent vacuuming of the bilge, the water flow from other parts of the bilge has decreased to a trickle. So I am trying a trick suggested by another bargee of using paper baby nappies to soak up any water that enters the bilge under the galley - that should keep it dry unless there is a major influx from elsewhere. Just need to remember to remove them if they get too moist, as it could be a trigger for rust formation.

On my daily perambulation, this time to get the port wifi code from Kaz, I noticed Dexter swimming down the middle of the canal, and while it’s hard to see her here in the photo, the rest of it is a nice reminder of the fine weather we’re having at the moment in Moissac.

As I was checking my emails this morning, I got one from a Monash student about the late submission of his assignment. This reminded me that I had a whole bunch of them waiting for grading on the Monash website. Rita had been boasting about how she had started grading them, so I realised that if I wanted to go barging after Rita gets to Moissac, I had better get them finished before she gets here. So given Iain’s comments about painting at the end of the season, rather than at the start, I had a big decision to make. Would I paint the boat or grade the assignments? So I tossed a coin, hoping it would land on it’s edge, and now I am about to start grading the assignments.

But first I had to go meet Nico and Miyu at a concert in the Hall de Paris being played by “workmen” with only their tools of trade e.g. hammers, screwdrivers etc. Should be interesting.

The concert turned out to be something different to what I expected. The first thing I noticed when I entered the hall was that it was filled with mothers and small children (about 100 pairs) - I think I was the only male adult in the audience. The second was that there were no “workmen”, just a performer dressed in overalls and playing a variety of impromptu instruments, many of which could have been tools. Many of the instruments looked like ones I had encountered at Veronique’s yesterday. He used a sound looper to overlay various sounds and generate a musical rhythm. He did a great job for about 30 minutes keeping all the kids relatively quiet. Massa certainly enjoyed it and bounced along, using all the skills he has gained from Veronique (see yesterday). At the end, Massa gave the performer a rousing round of applause.

Afterwards, Miyu and I went to the Compostella Cafe for a beer, and as we walked home we met Nico who had just knocked off from work. The three of them continued on to the park near the Tarn River for Massa to have a run around, while I returned to the barge to start marking assignments.