Since Rita was still away this morning, I decided to use the time for a bit more website work, in the hope of uploading the new and revised pages to the website server using the Vinci wifi system, However, when I tried, I found that no upload was possible on the Vinci wifi. So I just kept updating pages and will upload them later. This is a continuing problem with trying to maintain a “real-time” blog when travelling on the canals; it’s hard enough finding time to update the pages, but then finding a good (cheap) wifi signal to upload the pages is just as difficult.

In the late morning, I rode up to the station to meet Rita and then she rode back to the barge while I again walked along with her. As we crossed the bridge over the canal we saw a poster advertising a Night Market in Avignonet that evening, and so since we were a fan on Night Markets and liked the look of Avignonet, we decided to stay another night at our current mooring. As we continued on, we passed a field of sunflowers and felt to urge to join them in the field.

Facilities at the Port of Lauragais are numerous, and one of the favourites near our barge is the dog training enclosure. It’s always fun watching people take their dogs into the facility, and observe the range of skills of the dogs. Some do absolutely nothing, some walk around looking at all the “blue dogs” on the fences, some just look for a place to leave a greeting card, and others take all the jumps and ramps in their stride, but none of them have I seen that will jump through the suspended car tyre.

One of the things we often see as we cruise along the canals, and go through the locks, is people taking photos and videos of Kanumbra (we wish we had a $1 royalty payment for each one!). This seems to especially be the case on the Midi, where most of the boats are plastic hire-boats, and the sight of a “real” barge is quite a rarity. Today we had a family taking a "selfie” with the barge as a background.

As the evening approached, we were on our bikes and off to the Night Market in Avignonet. The first thing to do, as usual, was to find a secure place to chain up the bikes.

Many Night Markets are “just" food and drink and music, but Avignonet was different in that it also included the usual assortment of market stalls found at day markets selling clothing and a wide range of bric-a-brac.

The Night Market also gave me a chance to explore Avignonet a bit more, including looking at the “sphere” sculpture that Rita and Andre had described to me a couple of days ago. As I looked at the way it was built out of old handtools (spanners, wrenches, horseshoes, springs etc) welded together, I couldn’t help but think of the 200 old spanners I bought for $20 last year on the Buy, Swap and Sell website in Taggerty, and wondering if I could do something similar with the 170 excess spanners from that job lot!

Eventually, we settled down on the grass with some food and drinks, and enjoyed the band that was playing at the bottom of the hill (don’t worry, you’re not going blind; they hadn’t started playing when I took this photo!). We originally thought we might not hear them, but it was no problem as many of their family members were seated on the grass in front of us, and band members kept turning around to play to them!

Finally, as darkness approached, we decided to leave, since we still had to cycle back to the barge and while we had some lights, we prefer not to cycle on roads in the dark if we don’t have to. As we left along the main road, the lights and atmosphere of the Night Market left a lasting impression.

On the way home, I couldn’t resist snapping a photo of the sunset and the crescent moon. The colours in the sky reminded me of some sunsets you see in the outback of Australia.

When we got back to the barge, even it looked romantic with the port lights and the crescent moon.