Today started off early with more assignment marking (yippee!). But around about 9am I heard the doorbell ring downstairs, and it turned out to be Fred(erique) and her assistant Mathieu ready to start work on the remainder of the painting at la Maison. They set up quickly and were hard at work by 10am when I got a call from Tony Beckhouse that he was ready to move Reverie from her doubled-up mooring with Kanumbra. So I jumped in the car and headed for the port. First I had to collect the keys from the Capitainerie, since I had left them there over winter for Iain Noble to have access to do the winterising and de-winterising of Kanumbra.

But getting to the Capitainerie was easier said than done, since the Mairie was hard at work with roadworks on the street connecting the port with the centre of town. The street itself had been closed as they converted it to a one-way lane, with an extra-wide pedestrian footpath on the side.

And the roundabout was operating temporarily under a signal control system since one half of the roundabout had been closed as they erected a brick edifice in the middle. It will be interesting to see what it is in the end.

When I finally got to the Capitainerie office, I met up with Sandra (one half of the new Capitainerie pair). I explained that I had left the keys with Iain last year and she went looking on the key rack in the office. However, she could not find them anywhere. I then remembered that maybe I had left the old set of keys with the previous barge name (Kimasut) on them, but still they were nowhere to be found. Just as we were getting to the point of despair, she looked to the top of the bookshelf and said that Jim (her husband) had put a bunch of keys there that he didn’t know what to do with, and sure enough mine were there. I then realised that it had been 5 years since the barge was called Kimasut, and that this would have been before Jim and Sandra had arrived in Moissac as mooring bargees - to them, the barge had always been called Kanumbra.

So, with keys in hand, I went to the other side of the port (after many detours to get around all the closed roads), and met up with Tony Beckhouse. I was somewhat surprised that Kanumbra started on first attempt and that the bowthruster operated both port and starboard (given our problems last year with the solenoids). Our un-doubling manoeuvres made us look like we knew what we were doing. I de-roped from his barge and then put a bow line onto the boat in front (his old boat, Betty B), and used the rudder and slow forward thrust to swing the stern out enough for Tony to back Reverie out of his space on the quai. He then reversed across to the other side of the canal where he wanted to moor. I then gently shifted back and forward, edging Kanumbra into the now vacant space and closer to the quai. When close enough, I threw a stern rope over the quai bollard and tied off, then went forward and moved the bow rope from Betty B on to the quai. Simples.

I then checked out Kanumbra as she sat at ease. It was clear that she will need a good clean, and that last year’s lack of painting has caught up with me. The bungey cords holding the tarp over the dogbox have all deteriorated and will need replacing, while the bimini will have to be re-positioned and anchored in place after the wind ripped it off it the rear posts and deposited it on the wheelhouse roof (after which Iain tied it firmly in place with ropes). Despite this external mayhem, the interior was in quite good condition (apart from the mandatory cobwebs). Because no one had been living on board over winter, there was no condensation problems and the bilge was bone dry. Everything else was also clean and dry.

After returning to the house, it was back to assignment marking, with an occasional intermission to look out the window or otherwise relieve the boredom. During one of these breaks I discovered that we were not the only ones to appreciate the new Terrasse. As the western sun broke through the evening clouds, I saw that one of our neighbourhood cats was taking advantage of a nice place to sit in the sun.

Even better for him was the fact that we also provided a way to get home without the bother of having to go down to ground level!!