This morning we were woken by the sound of chooks, and a rooster, along the side of the canal.

But we were glad they had woken us, because it gave us the chance to see the sunrise over the canal to balance the sunset we had seen last night.

We had really enjoyed Forques as a mooring location, so it was with some sadness that we cast off on Friday morning, headed down canal a bit until we found a place in the canal that was wide enough to turn, did a 180, and then began the cruise back to Buzet, because we had to get back to Agen soon to meet some friends from Australia.

The cruise back to Buzet was pleasant and uneventful. That might seem rather boring, but sometimes this provides the most relaxing parts of the journey. When we got there, Rita was on her bike and soon swimming again at Lac Damazan, since this would be her last opportunity to do so this year.

We also had a final dinner and drinks at the port cafe, since this was likely to be John and Heidi’s last season of cruising aboard Serius, due to health reasons. Over drinks, I strangely found myself talking with a local Englishman called Dylan who was resting with a torn achilles tendon, incurred while playing cricket with the local Damazan team. This might sound strange for France, but there are quite a few cricket teams in this part of France. Whether it is the result of the number of English ex-pats now living in this region, or whether it has a longer history relating to the fact that this region regularly swapped between French and English rulership over the past few hundred years, I’m not sure.

After dinner, we joined in the regular port cafe trivia quiz, and were quite pleased to come 2nd out of five teams, beaten only by the team with someone who regularly disappeared onto his boat - we suspected to do a bit of Googling for answers (-:

At the end of the night, there were hugs all round as we were leaving in the morning, and we realised that we may not see John and Heidi again.