We rose late, and around noon ambled up to La Maison, where we were to have lunch with tenants Raphael and Isobella. As we arrived, we noticed someone walking through the front gate, so we introduced ourselves to her and just hoped she was not an intruder taking advantage of the unlocked gate. But as we approached the house, another man walked out and said hello, so we figured they must have been other guests that the Lozat’s had invited to lunch (as it turned out to be). As we sat down for a drink, we noticed Ginger walking through the garden. It was great to see our favourite cat again, and he walked up to us and started cuddling immediately (I think he does that with everyone). Since the death of our neighbour during the year, he has been passed over to our place as the official owners, and it is clear that Isobella has accepted him with fondness, even asking us during the year if they could cut a cat-door into the storeroom door. However, she said that he had had an accident during the year, where his rear leg had been dislocated. Apparently, he was lying under their car in the street and hadn’t got out in time before they took off. They ran over him and dislocated the leg; could have been much worse, but still cost a small fortune at the vets. I guess it just shows that they like him a lot to go to all that trouble and expense. He is now moving around with no apparent limp.

As we sat on the Terrasse, one of the reasons for the Terrasse eventuated, as a big barge (that we had not seen before) trundled along the canal just below us.

In the afternoon, Rita went uptown to meet Bernard, one of her local music friends and also an accomplished clown. In the evening, we just hung around on the boat, and I caught up a bit with this blog.

While we were having drinks with the Lozat’s and their guests, something was said that made us realise that one of the guests was ex-Mayor of Moissac, Jean-Paul Nunzi. It turned out that he and Raphael have been best friends since Raphael moved to Moissac 20 years ago. We then explained to Jean-Paul that he already knew of us, since he had used Kanumbra on two occasions as part of the annual Pentecote Parade in 2011 and 2012. He remembered well the 2012 Parade where the other participating barge, Somewhere, ran onto the barrage in the middle of the Tarn, and had to be rescued by Kanumbra.

We then moved up to the Terrasse where we had a relaxed lunch with good food, drinks and laughter with Jean-Paul and his wife Marion at left, Raphael and Isobella at top-right and their daughter Coralie next to Rita.