The next week was spent in the cool of Besain, so all of that week will be described on this single page.

July 16

After breakfast, Rita and I cleared the picnic table outside and played a game of table tennis. The table is only about half the size of a proper table tennis table, and is made of timber with 1cm gaps between the planks, but it works OK except for the vicious off-breaks and leg-breaks that occur without warning. Around noon I watched the third and deciding Rugby Union test match between England and Australia. It was another close match, with Australia having plenty of chances, but England ran out winners 21-17. In the late afternoon, Sarah and family arrived home from Beziers, chucked some karate clothes in the washing machine and grabbed a change of clothes, and then set off for another drive north to meet up with Albon's family for a week-long get-together in the Vosges Valley.

In the evening we went down to Poligny to go to a concert being held in the town square, featuring Les Marvelous Swing Quintet. They were very good with lots of Swing and Manouche numbers, and performed for nearly two hours without a break. Very good musicians, and the backdrop wasn't too bad either.

July 17

Big sporting day today, with the Hawks beating the West Coast Eagles 102-77, but my two NRL sides having close losses (Penrith d Wests 18-16, and Canberra d Storm 20-16). Thank heavens one of my teams won! In the late morning, I finally plucked up some courage and emailed to Irene about the van theft, knowing that she would be gutted even more than us. We also emailed to Doug back home about the ongoing saga of selling the portable building that we stationed on his property for the past several years, to be used as a rehearsal room for the steelband. Now that we practice elsewhere, Doug has been trying to get the portable sold and moved away. We finally got someone who was interested, but when they did an inspection they found some asbestos. So they wanted to get a major reduction in price, if they get rid of the asbestos. We see their point, but also want to get a fair price for the band to pay ongoing rental costs for the new rehearsal room. So the negotiations go on!

Late in the day, after the heat had subsided a little, we drove south a little way to visit the Four Lacs, and go for a walk in the trees. As we drove up the narrow winding road to the belvedere, we were grateful that we didn't have a campervan. Only to find a campervan parked at the top! The view from the top was spectacular, although I was finding it difficult to raise enthusiasm for anything at the moment.

July 18

Today was a very indoor day, given the ongoing heat. We emailed Philip at GAN Insurance to explain the situation re the stolen van, and ask for future actions that we should take. I continued updating the blog, and Rita continued work on her thesis, before she went for a late afternoon swim at Lac de Chalain. Thats it!

July 19

Today was very similar to yesterday! Except that instead of a late afternoon swim, we played table tennis. We didn't have a real table, so we used the slatted wooden picnic table, and a box for a net. It sure gave some interesting changes of direction, just to keep you on your toes. I had to try this filming many times, because I never realised how hard it was to play with the bat in your right hand and film with your iPhone in the left hand!!

July 20

Today was another day of avoiding the heat, by staying indoors and working on various tasks. But in the evening, I went outside for a special event. In the garden, there are yellow flowers that only bloom at sunset, then stay open all night, and in the morning they shrivel up and die. The next night, new buds burst into flower to replace last night's flowers. So, a total life span of less than 24 hours. The three stages can be seen below. Yesterday's flowers are now the brown things at the bottom of the photo; tonight's flowers are the yellow blooms; tomorrow's flowers are the long green buds between the yellow and brown. And if you watch the video below, you'll see one of the transitions, only slightly faster than in real life (20 seconds instead of 1 minute).

July 21

Today was our last day at Besain, because the Estors were returning from their family week, and we didn't want to get in their way while they were settling back into their house. But thank you, Sarah and Alban. So we did a bit more reading and blogging in the morning, then a major cleanup around midday, then started the drive to St Jean de Losne in the afternoon. When we got to SJDL we checked the mail, but there was still nothing from the Dijon Prefecture about my application. So we drove over to Auxonne to catch the 18:29h train to Montbeliard, but by the time we got to the Auxonne Gare, we realised that I would not have enough time to drive the car to the port, park it, then walk back to the Gare. So, we drove into town and had a cool drink at the bar in the main street, then returned to the Gare in plenty of time for the 19:29h train. I left Rita with all the luggage at the gare, under the watchful eye of the local gare cat. We immediately took a liking to him, because he had very similar colouring and personality to my son's ex-cat Bob, even if he was much, much smaller.

I got back to the Gare in plenty of time to catch the 19:29h train. When we got to Besançon, we had to change trains and saw that the train to Montbeliard was leaving from platform 8, which we had great difficuty in finding. But after asking some locals, who looked equally confused, one of them told us to follow him and he took us to the out-of-the-way platform at the side of the station. Lucky we found it, with only 10 minutes transfer time, because we later realised that this was the last train for the night from Besançon to Montbeliard, even though there were some more trains from Auxonne to Besançon!