Our first morning back in Auxonne was fine but cool, but the morning light gave us a better opportunity to survey our mooring location alongside Morningstar. While it made it more difficult getting on and off Kanumbra, it did give us protection from the southerly winds.

Now that we were back in Auxonne on shore power, we took the opportunity to do the laundry, while Rita did more study and I did some work on this blog. In the late morning, we went into town to the shops to restock on supplies. As we walked to the carpark on the other side of the port, we noticed that it was really starting to fill up for winter.

After shopping, we returned to the boat just in time to avoid the rain, which lasted on and off for the rest of the afternoon. So I followed progress in the 4th Test, and saw that Steve Smith had recorded his lowest score of the series, scoring only 82. He really is losing his touch! We were invited across to join Phil and Kathy on Effie this evening, for a "musical soiree" along with Derek and his partner Maureen. Since it was still raining, we kept a lookout on their boat, which was on the end of pontoon B, to see if Derek had arrived. When we saw him arrive with guitar under umbrella, we figured we also had to bite the bullet and venture out into the rain with Rita's steelpan. Even though their boat was only 20 metres from us across the water, we had to walk about 300m down Pontoon A and then back up Pontoon B to get there. Luckily the rain eased just after we set out.

After a few drinks and nibbles, and lots of chat, Rita and Derek unpacked their instruments and got into it. It was a great evening, with them playing and us singing (!). I think both of them appreciated playing with another "professional". While they had never played together before, and Rita had never played many of Derek's songs, they both got into the swing of things, and knew exactly when to hand over to the other for their solos. It was a delight, and I suspect the first of many such soirees to come in the future.