Monday morning saw us heading off to the Capitanerie to extend our stay till Friday. The man on duty checked the computer and said it would be no problem and extended the life of our key fob. Up in the office is an amazing pair of binoculars, dated 1934, made of brass and clearly once mounted in a very grand ship. We looked through them at a kite surfer riding the waves beyond the breakwater. On our way back we stopped for coffee at the Indian Glacier bar and watched the dogs go by. John checked the news on his phone and found that Mars is due to be exceedingly close tonight, so we resolved to dig our own binoculars out and have a look.

Later that morning we set out with an empty gas bottle in John’s backpack looking for a refill. We headed for the shipyard first only to be directed back to the supermarket and there just inside the entrance next to the toys and picnic sets were the gas cylinders. John hung around the entrance while I went into the shop for bread, then we took one new bottle to the till and they scanned it and exchanged it for our old one. Flushed with our success we walked back past the butchers and the aroma of rotisserie chicken stopped us in our tracks. It was too good to resist again, I went in to ask for one. There was a counter serving hot food to take away. A massive dish of paella, trays of various stews, dauphinous potatoes, a sort of hot foodstuffs deli, where one could buy a home cooked meal to take home and tuck right in. It certainly kicks ready meals into the long grass.

We carried our chicken home, torturing innocent passers by with the smell. Back on Lyra John put the gas bottle in place before carving the chicken as I put together a salad and cut the bread. Then we had a sumptuous roast chicken dinner and still have half to eat cold tomorrow.

When evening came the sky was clear. We used my phone app to find Mars and then had a look through the binoculars. At our level of magnification the closeness expressed itself as brightness and we persuaded ourselves it was on the pink side. We also had a look at Jupiter and Saturn and a general nosey round the sky. Even with lots of ground light here the stars were amazing through the binoculars, so we are planning to do more star gazing.