I lost my temper in French for the first time on Friday 9 May. I only mention the specific day bacause the French love to name streets after dates special in French history, hence Rue de 14 Juille, etc. Avenue de 9 Mai is likely to be seen soon. Read on... (Oh, and BTW, I've had to use one creative spelling to get past the Off Exploring auto-censor, the wimp!) Liz and I had been going well on a long days' cruise, part of our planned schedule to get us close to A...

Yes, an almost disastrous day... our second major scare since buying the boat, and one that could have seen us in deep - literally. It started beautifully. We had moored in the country on the Canal du Midi on a peaceful stretch of water, on the doorstep of the next lock which we anticipated going through first thing in the morning. During the night I'd got up for a call of nature and decided to peek outside to see what I could see. In a nutshell: stars, and lot...