The transition from campervan back to boat must have upset my timing, because a few minutes after midnight I felt pressure on my arm and a maniacal woman jumping around yelling "Pinch and Punch"! Oh well, there's always next month.

So I turned over and went back to sleep, and the next thing I knew it was morning. But the news wasn't any better, as we were greeted by drizzly rain which was to continue the entire day. So my plans to take down the winter canopy from the front of the boat were put on hold for at least a day. But if you're given lemons, then make lemonade. I settled down to watch the 4th day of the 2nd Ashes Test Match. Having batted well in the first innings to lead England by about 90 runs, things were looking OK for Australia at the staart of the day. But by Tea, they had all been dismissed for 279, leaving England to score 383 in four sessions and tie the series at 1-1. By stumps, England were 4-114, putting Australia in a better position as we entered Day 5 tomorrow.

And the cricket was the only good sporting news for me today, after Wests Tigers were beaten by Notth Queensland 74-0. This result was amazing, given that Wests had beaten them 66-18 just 6 weeks earlier. It was Wests biggest ever loss in NRL history. And this came after Penrith had soundly beaten the Storm on Friday night. Not my week for NRL results.

More cricket was played later in the day when the Australian Womens Team beat England in the first T20 match of the Ashes Series 154-153, with 1 ball remaining. Close, but a win is a win.

Sat 1 July - PnP, drizzle all day, watch 2nd Ashes Test, Wests 0-74, womens cricket

The Hawks gave me a trifecta of big football losses this week, when they went down to Carlton 112-52, having been behind for the entire game. Oh well, next week can't be any worse! Having been away from the boat for over a month, Rita took the chance to drive up to Besain to catch up with Sarah. That was OK with me, becasue it gave me the chance to watch the final day of the 2nd Ashes Test, uninterrupted. And what a day it turned out to be , with two unforgetable highlights. The first was when Johnny Bairstow walked out of his crease before the ball was declared dead, and was stumped/runout by Australian wicket-keeper Alex Carey. This caused all the English fans and media to go off their nut, complaining that Australia was not playing "in the sprit of cricket". Apparently playing according to the rules is not "in the spirit of cricket"! And all this after Bairstow had attempted a similar dismissal, but couldn't throw straight, earlier in the Ashes.

But this dismissal awoke the sleeping giant in Ben Stokes. Up until then, he had been playing fairly sedately, but now he started hitting the Australian bowlers over the fence at will. He raced to his century, then his 150, but on 155, just when it looked like he was going to inspire a dramatic comeback win by England, he attempted one too many big hits and was caught. It was such an outstanding innings that many of the Australian players congratulated him as he left the field. And that was the end of the English resistance, with the remaining batters falling without enough runs being scored. Australia went to a 2-0 lead in the Ashes series.

I spent the remainder of the day catching up with this blog. As the day drew to a close there was no sunset to speak of, but the full moon was dramatic in it's own right as it slowly rose over the Army Barracks.

Sun 2 July - Hawks, Besain, Day 5 of 2nd Test, blog, moonrise

The morning was warm, and the temperture rose to 30 degrees in the early afternoon, so I stayed indoors and kept working on the blog. As often happens when moored on Pontoon A (where all the hire-boats are moored), you hear some interesting conversations. Today I heard an Israeli from one boat talking to a German couple on another. Clearly, the Israeli had done a lot of canal cruising, and he was letting the German couple know all about it. they were very patient and seemed eager to learn. Towards the end of the conversation, they said that they had done lot of holidays hiking, skiing and lots of other outdoor activities, but this week had been their "best holiday ever".

In the evening, Rita returned from Besain, which means we can start cruising in the near future (having been here for two months and not yet taken the boat out of port).

Mon 3 July - warm morning, blog, Israeli/German conversation, Rita returns

But before we could do any cruising, we had to prepare the boat, and the first task was to take down the canopy that had been covering the front deck all winter. So I went around the boat and removed all the s-hooks and bungey cords that had been holding the canopy down, and then called Rita to help me remove and fold the canopy (which is definitely a two-person job). And this is when we encountered our first little problem. Over winter, it seems that a family of wasps had taken up residence under the canopy and built a nest on one of the support poles.

Tues 4 July - canopy, wasps, shingles, translation, empty Pontoon A, Talbot

Given my experience with wasps in Dijon in 2021, I was reluctant to become too adventurous in dealing with them. But luckily, we had a new can of insect spray on board, so I took turns at spraying the nest, then racing inside the wheelhouse and closing the doors. After about ten of these cycles, most of the wasps had either fallen to the deck or flown away. So we then took the long barge pole and knocked the nest off the canopy pole. We then threw the nest into the water to float away. But even through the nest was gone, individual wasps kept returning to the area for another couple of hours. So we gave up on removing the canopy until the wasp visitations had ceased.

While we were having lunch, we heard a knock on the door and met Dave from NZ. He introduced himself and explained that he was visiting a NZer on another boat in port, to help him while he recovered from a bout of shingles around his eyes. We talked for a while, and Rita offered to help if that was useful. He left to return to the other boat, but about an hour later he returned with John (the guy with the shingles) and said that it would  be useful if Rita could trnslate into French a letter that John wanted to take to a doctor in Dijon, where he had arranged an appointment tomorrow (just on case the doctor did not speak English). So Rita agreed to do that, and in return they produced a bottle of Pinot Blnc that we could share while she did the translation. She also agreed to ride up to the Gare to buy a return train ticket for John for tomorrow, since the automatic ticket machine was not easy to understand or operate.

After she returned from the Gare, we noticed that the wasps had greatly decreased in frequency of visits, so we took the opportunity to remove and fold the canopy and then remove the structure that holds up the canopy. While we were doing this, we noticed two other unusual things in the port. Firstly, we saw that there were absolutely no hire-boats moored on Pontoon A (which is very rare in the afternoon of a mid-summer day). Secondly, we saw a swan fast asleep and just floating around the port.

Later in the day, as I was walking around the port, I saw something else unusual. The skipper of a large old barge (that I had videod manoeuvring around the port last year) had returned to port, but in a most unusual way.

Closer inspection showed that it was a Talbot, which had gone to the Le Mans Classic Cars rally in 2014 (the same rally that we had seen all the sports cars going to last week as we drove back to Auxonne. I later found out, in talking with the owner, that the Talbot was from the 1930's and that they had also gone to the Le Mans rally last week, where another 13 Talbots had been present. Not exactly a daily sighting!

That afternoon, in preparation for sunset, the skies around the port took on some dramatic shapes. However, they dissipated before sunset arrived, so the promise was unfulfilled.

The day started with early morning rain, then changed to sunny, and then the wind picked up. Reminds me of the Crowded House song "Four Seasons in One Day". As I was going to the parking lot to wash the van, I noticed that the people on Pontoon B were going out for a drive in their Talbot - it sounded great.

Wed 5 July - rain, sun, wind, Talbot, sails, SJDL, ginguette, generator battery

After washing the van, I decided to continue the good work by cleaning the deck of the barge that had been under the canopy all winter. There was not as much to do as when we didn't have the canopy, but it still needed a bit of attention. As we were walking back to the van, to take it to the secure carpark in St Jean de Losne, we noticed that many sailboats from the club on the other side of the River Saone were out sailing for the day. At Auxonne, the river is wide enough for sailing and tacking, and they make the most of it.

After we parked the van in SJDL, we came back in the Scenic and went to Intermarche in Auxonne to stock up before we left in the boat tomorrow. We must have lost track of the time, until we heard an announcement to "please leave the store". We were the last customers to leave Intermarche today, before we had got all we needed by get! We then went down to the Ginguette for a quick meal, then returned to the boat.

As I was checking things before departing tomorrow, I found that the generator battery was flat again. Since i had it connected to the battery charger, I found this strange. But on checking the engine room, I saw the H2O staff had turned off all 240v power in the engine room (including the battery charger) instead of just turning off the light after they did the de-winterising. So I turned on the charger and let it do it's thing overnight, and went to bed.

The day started out warm, and remained that way all day. The generator battery had not fully charged so I let it continue charging, while Rita started on a new chapter for her thesis. In the late morning, the battery was fully charged, and the generator started and ran OK. But by now it was too late to get away and get where we intended today, so we accepted that we wouldn't get away till tomorrow.

Which meant that now I could watch Day 1 of the 3rd Ashes Test, instead of having to steer the boat. And at the end of the day, I was glad of that. After an early batting collapse by Australia, they were 4-85 at lunch when Mitch Marsh came to the crease. Finally the selectors had dropped Cam Green (although they said he was injured!) and replaced him with Marsh. And what an impact he made, scoring 118 from 118 balls, including a century between Lunch and Tea. But after he was dismissed with the score at 5-240, the last five wickets fell for just 23 runs. It was a powerful innings, matching Ben Stokes big hitting in the 2nd Test.

In the evening, Rita and I went for a walk up the river, and witnessed a Saone Sunset from a different perspective; this time from behind reeds along the riverside.

Thurs 6 July - warm, generator battery, thesis, 3rd Test, Marsh, river walk