Given our strenuous day yesterday, we decided to take it a bit easier today. So I spent the morning getting started on a little survey I am designing in connection with a Virtual MicroGrid project we are running in Marysville and Buxton back home. A MicroGrid is a group of properties connected to the main electricity grid who want to share the production and consumption of electricity. As part of that, I am modelling the production of solar energy and the consumption of electricity by each of the participating households. To do this, I need to gather some demographic information about the occupants of the properties, and also learn what solar panel and battery technology they have, if any, on the property. And so hence the need for the survey I am designing. It's interesting using all the experience I developed in the transport survey field and applying it in a totally different context.

While I was busy starting the survey design, Rita went shopping in nearby Champagnole and then for another swim at Lac de Chalain.

After getting the first draft of the survey completed, I put it aside (so that my brain could subconsciouly work it over). I've always found this a useful technique, even though it might look like I'm doing nothing. Often the subconscious mind sees things that the conscious mind skips over. While that was happening in my subconscious mind, I got my conscious mind working on catching up on a few days of this blog. This will, hopefully, be the only time this year that I mention writing this blog in this blog. In reality, an average day of this blog takes about an hour to assemble, including editing photos, writing the words and getting the layout right. If I miss updating the blog for a week, this means that virtually a whole day must be spent catching up. So I try to avoid this situation as much as possible. But it's not a big deal, because there is often a rainy day where blog-writing is the ideal filler. So you can assume that most days I will be doing something on this blog; it's just that I won't be mentioning it from here on.

One consequence of a blog-writing day, or any day spent indoors, it that you get relatively boring days which don't even generate a single photo - like today!  Sorry.

OK, I've relented and will include a screenshot I took this evening of Port Royal in Auxonne, where it appears that the River Saone has dropped considerably. Maybe the summer storms make the rivers rise quickly and also recede quickly. Hopefully this is a good omen for being able to start cruising next week.