The month of July started in the usual fashion, with me still up at midnight pretending to read and Rita still up preparing for her Music Therapy classes which start in Dijon today. As the clock passed mignight, we simultaneously tried to Pinch'n'Punch each other, so it was declared a draw.

Around 9am, Rita cycled off to the Auxonne station to catch the train to Dijon, while I settled down to work on this blog and make a start on this year's entries. There is still a lot of work to do on the re-writing of the site for previous years, but I decided to try to get this year's entries up-to-date first and then catch up with the rest, as time permits.

In mid-morning, I saw a beautiful large barge Kairos moving past our bow and manoeuvring slowly between the rows of moored boats, and I wondered where it was going.

I then heard a more deep-throated engine in the background and realised another barge was on the move. Closer inspection showed it to be Morningstar who was moored inside Kairos at the end of our pontoon. I watched it for a while and realised it was heading over to the banks of the marina to load a car on the front deck with its own on-board crane.

Soon the loading was complete, and it was heading out of port to the Saone to head south to Lyon. Overheard conversations on our pontoon suggested that this was the first time Morningstar had left port for a couple of years.

Later in the day, I heard a repetitive noise outside and on investiagtion it turned out to be a dog jumping into the water to fetch a stick, over and over and over again. This went on for ages (must have been at least 70-100 repetitions) and he was later joined by another dog who tried to join in on the fun. As a tribute to the perseverance of the dog and the owner, I made this little GIF.

While the two dogs were arguing over who would retrieve the stick, a cute little open barge from The Netherlands came into port. The hull was definitely barge-shaped, but it only had a tiny cabin up the front, and a canopy over the driving position at the rear. The rest was open. Not sure how it would go in wet weather, but looked ideal for cruising along in fine weather.

Given the ongoing hot weather, I was interested in one feature on the boat that had moored next to us. He had installed a short pipe, with showerhead attached, to the rear railing on his deck, with a hose connected directly to the tap on the pontoon. Whenever he wanted to cool off, he just stood under the showerhead and turned it on. Technically, you are not meant to have such a permanent attachment to the pontoon taps, but it could just as easily have been attached to a tap inside the boat. This would then use water from the boat's watertank, which would also mean that it could be used as an outside shower when away from port. It could also be used to provide a warm shower if the connecting hose was left coiled on deck in the sun.

Late in the day, the marina swans arrived with their newest addition to the family. A German guy on a nearby boat had fun getting into just the right position for a photo of the cygnet.