Vincent Van Gogh has something in common with Liz and me; the three of us quite liked the old Langlois bridge over the canal at Arles. When Van Gogh was there, he was struck by the geometric pleasantness of the bridge, and the tranquility of the scene, and so captured it forever in oils, watercolours and sketches. Unfortunately, as we arrived at the famous bridge we discovered we'd just missed him by 126 years. Frustrating. Still, it was worth the detour. Liz ...

I bought a new hat. Okay, that's hardly going to make the headlines, but it's a major in my life, as I have probably bought no more than maybe four bits of headgear in all my mumbledy-years. I can now hold my head up high in Beaucaire society, or at least keep my thinning locks hidden. Headgear is commonplace here in le sud de France, and varied. The favoured hat for young French men is, sadly, the ubiquitous beanie, usually black and wooly. Not exactly haute f...

I know, I know... we haven't blogged anything for a long time. Sorry, but. Happy New Year anyway, and all that. See, like yourselves, we've taken some time out over the past few weeks to relax, visit friends and family, drink and eat too much, and generally dispose of all of last year's resolutions in bulk. We also haven't been sailing in the boat anywhwhere, and so haven't had the ammunition or felt the impulse to blog. That's not to say we haven't been doing ...

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...