Today was one of those lazy days, as evidenced by the fact that there are no photos to illustrate the day’s events. After our late night chatting, we had a good sleep in, and then went for a walk around the "new city” (which is only a few hundred years old) as compared to the “Old Cite”, where the fireworks took place, which dates back well over 1000 years.

We stopped for lunch at a cafe in Place Carnot (where the concert was held last night), and then returned to the boat to just laze around. Since John and Wendy are leaving on Monday to return to England for a while, they had decided to have a few farewell drinks tonight and invited us along. Also, because they regularly moor in Carcassonne they are good friends with Stephanie (of the Port Capitainerie) and had invited her for after she had finished work for the day. So we would get the chance to chat socially with her as well. So at around 1930h, we spread tables and chairs on the timber decking alongside our boats, and proceeded to spend the next couple of hours having another chat. John apologised for the lack of hors d’ouevres to accompany the drinks, explaining that he was going to prepare elephant balls on toast, but had run out of bread.

A bit after 2100h, Stephanie took her leave, since she had to go inspect a new hire-boat design in Castelnaudary tomorrow (on her day off work). So we each retired to our boats, and while Rita and I were feeding 2 ducks our supply of stale bread, we noticed 2 coypu swimming in the water as well. So Rita threw a couple of over-ripe peaches into the water, which attracted the coypu. While one started nibbled on one of the peaches, the other coypu grabbed the other peach between his front paws and then proceeded to carry it, water-polo style, over to the other side of the canal where we saw him sharing it with a family of coypu nestled under the reeds on the far bank. An interesting way to end the day.