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Well, you let Alix write her first blog post about our plans, and the plans immediately get ripped up: “ Oh my goodness, it’s this week ”, is now “ OMG, it might be next week ”. Chris called us. We were in the car as is usual when he calls. We were enroute back down to the Med. Sari was driving and Alix and I were in the back along with the luggage. We held our breath as he relayed the three issues: First, we have no bed: Because our sprung mattress for the owners’ berth in t

Our garden in Aubeterre-Sur-Dronne. Alix here: I had a disturbed night. We are in a quiet lane at the top of the village, but the house next door was converted to a gite a few years back, and occasionally we get a party gang. The music was still going by the pool at 23.40, so I asked them to turn it down, which to be fair, they did a few minutes later. But after that, it was difficult to sleep properly. I woke up at 03:00. Suddenly, I thought – we get the boat this week. Aft

Missy Bear from across the port, with SAS's hanger in the background, courtesy of Miki. We are very pleased to report today that, after half a day of chasing our tails and conversing in ' Franglais ' with various people and French officials, we have confirmed how to get our passports stamped on exiting France. [ To stamp in French is tamponner. ] We eventually found the name of the chap in the Douane (customs and immigration) at Port-Vendres who could help us. His name is M.

France is a huge and varied country; well over twice the size of the UK, and four times the size of England, with only 1.2 times the population. Driving should be a pleasure, as there are far more roads and far fewer cars. The French police, however, seem to be even more keen to catch you speeding than the British. The national speed limit on normal roads was (until a couple of years ago) 90kmh, but Departments were then allowed to change limits to 80kmh at will. This is one

At management school, they used to use the phrase ‘ eating an elephant ’ as a metaphor for tackling large tasks, i.e., one cannot eat an elephant in one mouthful. Today, it feels like we have munched our way through another small loxodontine steak, having arrived safely at the SAS shed in Canet with all our worldly boat-related goods. We managed to shove even more in the car yesterday night, and set off at about 06:45 this morning for our long drive southwards. We headed cro