One of the problems in mooring along the edge of the basin is that the benches along the path are a popular gathering place for yobbos in the early hours of the morning. And so at 0200h this morning we were woken by loud voices and laughing. I got up to check who it was and saw about 5 guys and one girl on the bench at the end of the pontoon. As I watched, one of them came down the pontoon and started exploring the little boat on the other side of the pontoon. When he came across to check out our bikes that were on the pontoon, but chained to the barge, I moved to the door of the wheelhouse, then rattled the handle on the door. It scared the hell out of him, and he took off up the pontoon and continued running up the road until he disappeared from sight! It was worth getting out of bed. Soon after, it started to rain, and so everyone decided to go home, and we went back to sleep.

One of the problems with mooring on the western side of the pontoon, is that the prevailing westerly winds blow all the rubbish across the top of the water in the basin, and it collects at the front of the boat on the western side. There was already some rubbish collected along the pontoon when we moored here, and it had jammed the bowtruster, so I was concerned when even more had collected overnight. So I decided to re-moor Kanumbra along the grass bank, facing Rovi, withiut using the bowthruster. So with the help of a long rope from Rob, we pulled the stern of Kanumbra around so that it was now parallel to the grass bank.

I then cleaned all the accumulated rubbish away from between Kanumbra and the grass bank and from along the western side of the pontoon.

The morning brought heavy rain, so we stayed on board until it relented, then cycled into town to do some shopping at the indoor market, before heading south of Agen past the rugby stadium to find the Castorama bricolage that we had found on Google. Having bought some metal primer paint and a few other items, we headed back to the barge just before more rain arrived.

In the afternoon, I tried starting the generator, but it had become reluctant again, and took 8 attempts before it eventually decided to keep running. Phew!

In the evening, I followed the German Speedway SGP event from Teterow on my iPhone, where Jason Doyle took third place in the Final, but gathered highest points in the race for the World Championship, to go to a 10-point lead in the championship with 3 rounds to go. One can only hope that no one takes him out in one of those rounds, like happened last year.