As I was saying yesterday, the thing we like about Phillipot Parc is the peace and quiet, so today we prepared for a sleep-in. But we were in for a rude awakening when the peace was interrupted by Andre (our Moissac neighbour’s son-in-law), his wife Francoise and their friends who were cycling from Moissac to Bordeaux along the canal. We had left our bikes chained together to the barge the night before, so they decided to just ring our bells until we got out of bed. We knew we would meet them somewhere along the canal, but just not at this place and time! But we had a great chat over coffee and biscuits, interspersed with lots of laughter, especially when Andre decided to flag down other passing cyclists to join us for coffee! The pictures I took of this lycra-clad group are the ones I miss most from the Great Disk Crash of 2016. After about an hour, they had to leave us to keep on some sort of schedule for getting to Bordeaux.

After we grabbed a little bit more sleep, and then did our morning checking of email etc, we finally had a 1300h departure from the Parc, on our way to Damazan for Tuesday night’s Night Market. We arrived at Damazan at 1500h, and since we had seen several friend’s barges moored at Buzet on the way through we cycled back to Buzet to join them for drinks.

Since evening was approaching, and the port cafe (Au bord de l’eau) had just opened the kitchen, we decided to stay for dinner, and were very glad we did. Rita’s salad was large and tasty and my duck dish was delicious. I normally don’t take photos of food, but I made an exception tonight, especially since it was served on a slate slab (and one of my steelband friends - you know who you are - just loves food on slabs!).

After we finished dinner, and a couple more drinks, it was time to cycle back to Damazan in the dusk. One of the good things about cycling on the towpaths in low light is that you don’t have to worry about cars, and you can normally see other cyclists, unless they have also forgotten to bring their lights with them! It’s amazing how an iPhone camera can make things look not quite as dark as they are in reality.