It was raining today, so I didn't mind being inside and working on the MicroGrid report. In late morning, I got up for a stretch, and replaced the balloon fender on the starboard bow that we had punctured in one of our bowthrusterless accidents. Later in the day, I helped an older barge (Hoop op Zegen) moor near us and met up with Nick Bostock and wife Maurice. Then it was back to the MicroGrids.

More MicroGridding, but with a break in the morning to watch some of the DragonBoaters do their stuff on the river. There appeared to be three teams of schoolkids taking turns in the two available DragonBoats and battling it out on the water. Great fun was had by all.

I noticed both Rob&Anna and John&Frances getting fuel for their boats at the end of the pontoon, before they both left port to head upstream. We hope to catch up with them after we head off next week.

I finished the MicroGrid modelling work this morning and before starting work on the report, I took some time off to go for a walk down the river and around the port. There I saw two boats that I have seen often, but usually not stationary - the Tourist Boats.

Later in the afternoon, I saw one of them at work, at it cruised by Kanumbra with a good crowd on board.

As often happens when you start writing the report, you find aspects of the modelling and the results that you find difficult to explain in words. And this report was no different. So it was back to the spreadsheets to do some re-analysis, and check some of the assumptions. But there were no major problems to be overcome, and the report writing continued. Rita arrived back from Besain in the evening, but did not disturb me.

D-Day had arrived, and the report writing was proceeding. I had had a disturbed night's sleep as my mind turned over many ideas for the report, but by morning I was feeling confident of finishing on time. Rita did the nice thing by leaving the boat to me and going to work in the Besançon University library, where she purchased a Visitors card and was able to make full use of the library, including borrowing rights. She arrived home late in the day, a very happy person having found several books of great use in her thesis writing. As the sun changed to rain late in the day, I kept my head down. Finally, at 2350h, I was able to hit SEND as my report was submitted to the Shire. Even though it was only before midnight French time, I was happy that at least it would arrive on their desk before they fired up their computers in the new financial year. The response of the project officer captured this nicely when she replied "I wish I was in the situation to use the dateline as an excuse!".