Well, I thought I might get a good night’s sleep, but I was wide awake at 5am. But rather than trying to go back to sleep, I used the time to get some good quality thinking time for the MicroGrid project for Taggerty, including using network modelling to estimate how much load might be taken off the national grid by producing, storing and consuming electricity locally, how we could use a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) for the Solar Farm, and how we could expand the solar farm to cater for more households participating in the MicroGrid than previously planned. So, by the time Rita woke around 9am, I had got in 4 good hours of thinking time. But like trying to remember dreams, some of the details were a bit fuzzy by the time I was fully awake.

In the late morning, we headed into central Bern for a family lunch with Rita’s mum, brothers and nephews/nieces near the Parliament Buildings above the River Aare.

It turned out to be a very enjoyable gathering, which I learned was only done once a year when Rita and I are in town (so we are not missing out on anything for the rest of the year). When everyone else drifted into talking Swiss-German, I took the opportunity to catch up on the AFL game in Melbourne where the Hawks were playing the Adelaide Crows. After an even, but lacklustre, first half, the Hawks pulled away in the third quarter with seven straight goals to run out easy winners 88-32.

But I kept getting distracted by another football match in the FIFA World Cup, where Australia was playing favourites France. I was expecting a final scoreline of between 3-0 and 5-0, and when France were the first to score, I feared the floodgates might open. But two minutes later, Australia had equalised and it remained neck and neck from there on. I was starting to hope they could hold on for a draw, until France scored again in the last 10 minutes, and this time there was no comeback. France 2-1. No win, but a creditable performance.

By mid-afternoon the party was breaking up, so we put Mutti in a taxi to head home, and then after hanging around for a bit longer, Rita and I took the Bändli tram home to Gümligen, where a much needed afternoon nap was taken. Must have been all that early morning thinking that made me tired.