In preparation for the Barge Festival next weekend, we decided to take the barge down to the River Tarn and get a mooring space on the quai. So after buying a VNF Vignette on-line, we headed off for the double-lock around 9.30am. Technically, we needed a vignette to get through the lock, but we couldn’t print it out, and the VNF guy never looked for it anyway. We will print it and display it before we come back up to the canal next week.

Once we got tied up and connected to shore power, I pulled out the Kartcher pressure washer to give the deck a good clean. This turned out to be a day-long task in the warm sun, but it sure made a difference, and was much easier than doing it by hand as I had done in the past. The difference between cleaned and uncleaned deck shows up well at left below, and I continued the Frank Vella tradition (in reverse) by “painting” his initials on the deck with the washer.

During the day, a number of other barges came down to join those already on the Tarn. By the end of the day, 10 barges were moored at the quai in readiness for the coming weekend, including, Artemis, Carolyn, Acadia, Vasy, Serius, Pomme de Mer, Papillon, Victory and Lyneve.

In the afternoon we got a call from Gedimat saying that our timber (for the hanging frames) had arrived, so we nipped out there and collected them, managing to get three packs of 20 sticks into the Scenic (we had previously found out that we could fit 2.4m lengths in, but were unsure that we could collect all three packs in one go, but all worked well). Then it was back to la Maison, to start making all the rest of the frames. While I was doing that, Stuart (our house guest) volunteered to paint the gates and fence with the blue Hammerite paint that we had bought from Weldoms. I was more than happy to let him do that, even though the actual painting was the fun part, after all the preparations I had done in the past week. In the meantime, Rita and Jackie were inside the house busy making preparations for the weekend.

As evening arrived, we all quit work for the day and began to prepare dinner of barbecued duck strips, boiled potatoes sauteed in duck fat, plus a variety of vegetables, followed by the obligatory cheese plate all washed down with red wine. A typical French dinner served on the Terrasse. As the sun set, we were treated to a colourful departure from the day.