For the past two days we have been in the teeth of a gale. I like that; gales have "teeth", wind "whistles", you can be out in a "biting" northerly. There is something very oral about wind, no doubt because it shares a common characteristic with humans: it blows. Now it has to be said that a bit of wind doesn't faze us. I've lived in Wellington since 1979, Liz for the past 16 years, so we both qualify as full-blown citizens of New Zealand's capital city. As suc...

Death and taxes; the two inevitabilities. Liz and I are successfully avoiding the latter - simply by not earning anything at the moment - and trying our best to steer clear of the former. Had we been sailing down the Rhone in the past week we may well have been staring death in the face, as the river is in flood and screaming along. There has oviously been some serious rain up north, and sensible boaties don't venture out in such conditions. Luckily for us we ha...

Good news: I am still alive. And so I live to tell the tale, of how a soccer game almost ended my life. It has been at least seven weeks, and likely much longer, since I last had a haircut, and it was driving me mad. Not that I was starting to look like a hippy, but it's the fluff at the back of your neck that gets to you more than anything else. It catches on your collar, itches, and as it rubs it is a constant and annoying remjnder that you are OVERDUE for a h...

You'll remember the French song "Sur le Pont d’Avignon" perhaps. And if you're like me, that first chorus line is all you'll remember about it. So, let's bridge the gap a bit... Avignon has something like three bridges, but the one referred to in the song is St Benezet's. Depending on which scholarly works you go to (e.g Wikipedia, Google...) Benezet was a child prodigy who, after a vision from God (who arranged angels to take care of his sheep for the duratio...

After the exorbitant mooring fee at St Gilles we left, determined to somehow lower our average per-night spend, and we did. It's only about 20 kilometres (just over 12 miles for those using old money) to Beaucaire, our next destination, and these days the end of the line for this particular canal. For quite some years now the lock at Beaucaire that accesses the Rhone has been closed off due to a "barrage" or weir constructed just beyond it. But for all that Be...