There are some clever observations of life that have been made by some clever people, such as where does your lap go when you stand up, and if you dismantle something can you mantle it again? Deep questions, well worth asking. So it stands to reason to also ask, what happens to mariners when they're not marinating? What do boaties actually do when they're not cruising? Because, from September through to around April, most boaties here in France don't live up to ...

Now that we've committed to staying in the one place for the next three months or so, many of you will be delighted to know there are likely to be fewer blogs as a result. This matches the time-honoured tradition of TVNZ, TV3 et al, who - knowing that over the Kiwi summer everyone has much more interesting and healthy things to do than sit in front of a screen - reduce their programming, send all their overpaid presenters on holiday and play repeats. We are ther...

(A bit of a departure from the normal blogs...) Hairdressers have long been known for their love of puns, evident in the various names of their salons, from HairPort, British Hairways, and A Cut Above, to Scissor's Palace, The Best Little Hair House, and the undeniably clever Crops and Bobbers. The other thing hairdressers are famous for is inane chatter. Who hasn't been sat in the chair only to have the stylist start off with, "So, where are you going for the ...

We finally got within a stone's throw of the Mediterranean. Well, that's assuming you can throw a stone six kilometres, but the 13th Century town of Aigues-Mortes is as close as we can get by boat at the moment. The canal does continue on to a place called Grau du Roi, a nice fishing port, where theoretically you could carry on out into the Med and head for Spain, Italy or Greece. But apparently you're only allowed to go to Grau du Roi by boat if you are "going...

There's a lot about canal boating that's photogenic. The canals themselves for one thing, especially those here in France that are lined with trees, planted in the 19th century in a forward-thinking move to reduce evaporation and erosion. Then there are the boats themselves, many of them dating back a hundred years or more, with gorgeous lines and curves. Add to these the play of light on water, the horizontal beams of sun at dusk or dawn, the egrets, herons a...