9th September 2007
Slowly getting into the swing of this leisure thing, it’s been so relaxing that I don’t really have a lot to report back about, we’ve been to the nearest major town Concarneau which I guess means “with meat”? Similar to Spanish? Doesn’t really make sense though as its a fishing town & meat seems to be very poor & expensive in France (just bought a rib of beef for my supper & it cost 15 euros! & it looks flabby, like me).

We traipsed around the old town, very touristy, all selling the same old bollocks really, the highlight & I have to say you’d never get away this in the UK was watching a “weird beard” set up his domestic pet circus, I can’t tell you what they did as we didn’t have time to hang around। I say domestic but there was a dirty goat in there & a goose, judging by the posters the animals cycle around on miniature bicycles, how French! No doubt with a string of onions around their नेच्क्स.

We continued just exploring really & found a little cove/village that grows oysters & other crustaceans, we had to do one of MA’s/Slacks forced marches to earn the right to eat, Lucy my favourite dog decided to protest halfway around the coastal walk, I have to tell you now that some of you are saying that I am a little on the Victor Meldrew side, well I’m not really, the countryside here is so absolutely beautiful, but Lucy & I, she’s my dog, have had enough of all these forced marches। Afterwards MA rewarded us with Moule Frits & a bottle of Muscadet. Later we went to bed & watched a movie starring Mark Walhberg & Danny Glove caller Shooter, I’d recommend it, it’s about CIA snipers blah blah.

Today, the 9th we had a total day on the beach after having an early morning wake up call by my bladder at 6.50 am, I tried to go back to sleep but MA made me tea & toast with Nutella on, my new fave. I then dropped off again until 9.30am. Shower, shit & a shave. Made some Scooby sandwiches & off to the beach! Tahiti beach, funny name for France. A massive expanse of open unspoilt sand & rocks..... at first.

We settled down with our new parasol, cold box, blankets, ground sheet etc & ate all the food by ११30, I polished off the chilled bottle of Muscadet by 12।30, feeling decidedly mellow I settled down to read the Daily Telegraph (I am going to read the Times only on a Sunday now & the Mail on Tues & Fri when Littlejohn is writing)।

Sacre bleu!!! Some tossa of a frog has just had a screeching fit, Blossom, my 37cm long dog has just gone over to greet the “sitting on the fence, shoulder shrugging, cheese eating surrender monkey”. She must have savaged a newly born baby or at the very least nicked his cheese? It’s all going off, I politely said “Simmer down sil vou plait or however you say it, followed up by a “piss off”. Mary Ann joined the fray, Mr Froggy was in a purple rage by now & spoke good English, I’d have expected him to be fluent in German, anyway he ranted to MA about the dogs on the beach, this was a dog friendly beach & MA pointed this out to him, what was the problem? Apparently Blossom went over to greet them & stood on his “carpet”, bolstered by my bottle of Muscadet we belittled him, “shame you didn’t kick up such a fuss when the Germans were marching though your village” blah, blah, little Napoleon.
His wife & family seemed embarrassed & all moved away from him, not from our baby Bloss!
Ha! Woke up at five dribbling into the sand with about 1000 people playing “we’re all going on a summer holiday games”, time for home. Funny how time flies? We have one more day here, bring on the Barge!! That’s going to be a big responsibility for Slack.

11th August 2007
The Barge!!! We’re on it! It’s all very involved but you’d have to ask my wife as I am having absolutely nothing to do with except tying ropes & ducking & sucking in my breath when we brush too closely to bridges & banks. I did a massive shop, same problem with the meat counter so we’ll be eating mainly quiches & salads & poultry this week. Whilst I was shopping MA was put through her paces, you really do have to be a bit intelligent to sail one of these things, I’m too interested in the contents of the twin fridge & wine to be able to take in too much. We hire some bikes to take along with us, I look like a performing bear in the circus on mine, just a pair of wheels showing beneath me.

Even though we have the biggest boat on the river, really, it sleeps 8 & has two bathrooms & WC’s it seems so bloody small & inadequate, it hasn’t even got a flushing toilet, you have to pump it by hand & I can tell that I’m gonna be doing a hell of a lot of pumping, the waste goes straight into the river instead of into a holding tank, I think that’s disgraceful, I won’t be eating sweet corn this week, not unless we are out & moving along anyway!

So we did a practice run, the dogs were all panting & panicking but I had faith in my wife, she seems to be a natural, the instructor says that he will come with us to the first lock which is kind of him or maybe that’s what he’s paid to do? As we go through & we are two metres down inside Sammy, who else, falls into boiling maelstrom, F॥cking typical, it’s a miracle, I mean a miracle he wasn’t crushed to death, I had to laugh though, funny thing was though that MA had taken the life jacket off of Sam & given it to Baby Bloss to wear, Sammy has street & boat cred you see। So that was enough for today, MA’s shot to bits, we’ve travelled I’d say 800 metres? We’ve tied up outside a Bar Restaurant; I can’t be assed to cook so we are going to eat out। Watch this space!