Another warm night, but not as hot as yesterday, and so we were able to get some sleep OK. In the morning, light rain began to fall, and the forecast was for more rain during the afternoon and night. So cycling to Meilhan for the Night Market was looking less and less likely.

In the morning, Highlander passed through Fontet on her way to Castets, and then we settled down to wait for the rain. While we were hanging about, I did some work with the calendar and realised that the chances of going down to Bordeaux with the “flotilla” was getting less and less, as days passed and we still had to get back to Agen by the 11th to pick up Craig and Ginger. In fact, we had a few more constraints, since Rita was now going to play in St Maurin at the opening of the new restaurant on the 10th, and we had to be somewhere convenient that morning since they had agreed to come and pick her up from the barge. Rita also still has to fit in a train trip to Moissac for a series of meetings about the house and the 2018 Fêtes, and we still don’t know what the tide situation on the Garonne will be, which will determine the windows of opportunity for going down and coming back. So rather than have all these constraints and pressures hanging over our heads, I reluctantly contacted Dave Rothery and let him know that we would have to pull out of that trip for this year. As it turned out, he was still in Meilhan and had just been joined by Effie, but he had to stay there till Monday when a fuel tanker was arriving to refuel l’Escapade and Rovi. So that timing would definitely have ruled us out anyway. So now we’ll just hang around here for a while longer and then slowly make our way back to Agen for the 10th.

In the afternoon, I contacted Paul Ladyman from Sutton Marine Services, who was the guy Stuart recommended to look at our generator problem. Stuart had been talking with him about us, and by chance Paul is driving down to Spain next week and may be passing relatively close to us. So I thought I’d ask whether a quick visit might be possible. He got back quickly to me, and asked for me to take a picture of "the injector pump showing the stop solenoid” so that he could see whether our generator has an electric governor fitted that might be limiting the engine speed to 1500RPM (despite our attempts to raise it to 1560). Presumably he needs a better idea of the problem and the generator set-up before be commits to a visit. So I took a photo of what the Manual indicated might be what he wanted and emailed it, but it was not quite right, so a second attempt produced the picture below, which I again emailed and awaited a further response.

With Meilhan off the agenda for tonight, we went for a short walk towards la Reole along some of the local roads, and then adjourned again to the area around the old Church to continue the Petanque Challenge. Once again the rough surface caught me out, and Rita won 3-11, to go to a 4-3 series lead. Back on the barge, we waited for the rain, but apart from a few showers it never really eventuated as forecast (but I’m sure it would have, if we had cycled to Meilhan!).