The morning started cool and overcast with the remnants of yesterday's thunderstorm weather. So I got working on finishing the report on the Pyrolysis project for SMF. During the morning, Capitain John came to the boat with some mail that had arrived for us, in the form of a replacement windscreen wiper for the wheelhouse. Online, it had looked like it would be a good replacement, but you can never tell until you have it in your hand. The replacement looked a bit different (black plastic body with an ON/OFF switch, instead of chromed metal with no switch) but all the rest looked similar and easily fitted into the same hole in the window frame and with the same position of the electrical connectors. But when I put it in place, and then went outside to check, I realised that the spindle in the new wiper was too short to project out of the frame, and be able to be connected to the blade. At this point, I thought I had bought the wrong replacement. But luckily, I had kept the old unit, and realised that I could take the old (longer) spindle from the original wiper and swap it for the short spindle in the new wiper, after which the blade could be connected. So, I then spent some time adjusting the connection of the blade to the spindle, with Rita turning the wiper on and off from inside the wheelhouse, while I made adjustments to the conenction so that the end of the blade would not contact the window frame on either side of the glass. In the end, we now have a working windscreen wiper for the boat. (Dear Readers, this paragraph and photo and obviously for my own future reference, because I doubt that many of you are interested in the intricacies of a boat's windscreen wiper).

During the morning, we realised that the campervan was in need of a new Control Technique inspection. For those not familiar with this system, France does not have annual vehicle registration certificates. Rather, every two years, each vehicle must undergo a Control Technique (CT) inspection (similar to a Roadworthy Certificate inspection in Australia, but more detailed) at one of the authorised CT centres in France. France also does not have Registration Certificates as such. Rather, once the CT is passed, you are issued with a certificate and sticker that serves as your registration, including your Third Party Insurance. The stickers are now being phased out and, similar to Australia, your vehicle registation status can now be identified via a camera with an online link to the centre database of registrations linked to your number plate number. No reminder is sent to you about the CT inspection being due; you are meant to keep track of this yourself, although there is a website (https://histovec.interieur.gouv.fr) where you can check all the details of your vehicle (by number plate), including when the last CT inspection was done. By doing this we found that we were a week overdue from when John and Irene had got the last CT before we bought the van from them. Indeed, we were more than a bit overdue, because we now found out that we were supposed to have done the CT in the two months before the two year expiry date. This is not a big hassle in terms of not having the inspection done, but it also means that your third party insurance has also lapsed if you pass the two year date. With police now able to detect this from an automatic roadside camera, it is something to take more notice of. So we quickly called Dole Citroen, who had been very helpful last year when we needed a replacement VIN plate after the theft of the van, and made an appointment for a service and CT inspection, which they said they could arrange to be done on the same day. Unfortunately, they couldn't get it done before June 13, which was over 2 weeks away. But we didn't have much choice, because delaying the CT inspection would only increase the probability of us being apprehended for driving the van without insurance, so we agreed to the date and decided to work out how to schedule everything later.

When we got home that evening, I started writing a report which describes the operation of the BioFACT model which I have developed to analyse the various pyrolysis system scenarios. It's going to be quite a task. As I was contemplating the next line for the report, I was looking out the rear window of the wheelhouse and saw lots of activity on the footpath around the marina, where the two port swans had taken up residence. Lots of people were gathered around taking photos, but my attention was caught by the grandfather and grand-daughter who had paused on their evening walk to contemplate the swans. One can only imagine the tall stories that the man is telling his grand-daughter about the swans.

The day started rainy and proceeded to stay that way for most of the day. So we weren't feeling too bad that our barging plans had been disrupted by the CT inspection issues. So I continued working on the BioFACT Model report until late morning, when we had to Zoom in to a webinar being held back home for the first meeting of the Shaping Murrindindi's Future Innovation Working Groups (IWG). This was the first of monthly meetings that will be held to explore issues and develop business-ready proposals within the four areas identified by the SMF consultations (including Farm Forestry). This first meeting was a general meeting being held for all four groups, to describe the obectives and procedures associated with the IWGs. Unfortunately, not much new material was covered, so at least we were glad that we didn't have to get up very early in the morning to join the Zoom (as often happens with meetings held during working hours back home). After this meeting finished, I went back to writing the BioFACT report, while Rita did some music rehearsal, which she had been neglecting for the past month while she prepared her Music Therapy presentation.

It seems that more and more often this year we are singing that old Supertramo song "It's Raining Again". Because guess what, it's raining again! This has been a very wet year over here so far, and so different from the past couple of years where there was not enough water and canals were being closed everywhere. Now there's too much water and canals and rivers are now being closed again.

And this morning we were singing another song/poem with the words "Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink" when the water tank ran dry. So I was out in the rain connecting hoses to fill our tanks - should have just got a great big funnel.

As I was checking our French bank account this morning, in connection with some questions that the tenants had about their payments for electricity and gas, I realised that no house insurance payment had been taken out of our account this year, when it would be expected in February. I double and triple checked this until I was convinced, then Rita rang Novelia to find out what had happened. They told her that they had cancelled all house insurance policies this year because of the rising cost of climate-change-induced claims, and that we were sent a letter to this effect in January. Unfortunately, this letter was not passed on to us by the tenants, so our house has been uninsured for the past 4 months (luckily nothing bad has happened).  However, they said they were now reconsidering this decision and were again issuing house insurance policies, and that we could get a quote over the phone. So Rita went through the process and answered all their questions, and they said they would send us a new quote via email. Within a couple of hours we received the quote from Novelia, which was EUR1900 - more than double the price for last year! They sure know how to fet rid of customers. We shall start looking elsewhere.

For the rest of the day, I continued working on the BioFACT report, and then that evening we went to a Paris Swing Concert at Cave de Chateau in the old Chateau near the river. The place was packed, including many barge people we recognised. We were seated at a table for six with local residents and Rita got into conversation with them. When the music started we were surprised to find that our admission ticket included a light meal and free drink, which was served to our table. The music was quite good, including lots of old French favourites and several written by the father and son guitarists.

During the intermission, Rita got talking with the sound engineer to see how the event was organised, and sounded him out about doing the sound engineering if we wanted to do a concert here (either with McBlues this year, or Pans iof Fire next year). After the concert, she also talked with the head of the Cultural Committee who organised tonight's concert, and asked him similar questions about what would be involved. Never miss an opportunity to organise a gig!

I continued work on the BioFACT Model report, because Peter and Judy Vizzard has expressed an interest in the pyrolysis project, and they were coming over this morning for Peter to learn more about the project. After we had chatted for a couple of hours about it, Judy reminded us that we were also going to lunch . So we stopped our conversation and headed off to lunch at a little family restaurant that Peter and Judy had discovered just ourside Auxoone. It turned out to be a good choice with lots of locals also going there for lunch (always a good sign). Over lunch, Peter (and Judy) continued to ask some good questions about the pyrolysis project (another good sign).

After we got back from lunch and Peter and Judy had headed home to their boat, Rita and I had a WhatsApp conversation with Michelle (our estate agent) about the sale of the house and the situation with the tenants and the newly-discovered case of cancer. She explained to us that the serious buyers probably wouldn't appear till early spring and that with a 3-month settlement period it would be probably close to the end of the year before the house was actually sold and monies exchanged. So we could probably agree to the December 31 departure date for the tenant, with the option of an earlier departure if an early buyer appeared and wanted to move in ASAP.

With that issue out of the way for the moment, we settled back into life in the port, and noticed boats of all sizes and shaping arriving and departing, with the little boat at left below and a lrger very sleek boat at right below.