Days 615-621, 9-15 Feb '16, Chinois! Vegemite! Gales! And not much else... OK. More Gales! If I said it was a quiet week, I'd be lying. We are actually lucky the house wasn't picked up in Wizard of Oz fashion and dropped on Paris. We had howling gales and rain for a fair old part of the week. Major highlight of the week was the receipt of a shipment of vital supplies - not from the Red Cross per se... but rather from James's mum Joan - an absolutely vital shi...

Days 588-593, 11-16 Jan '16, La Trappe - a tiny hamlet in the vicinity of Bazauges... a slightly larger hamlet - in the vicinity of small, medium and larger villages and towns... near Cognac (now there's a place name to conjure with!) On Monday we grazed the breakfast buffet and lazed about in our spacious Paris hotel room (usually mutually exclusive terms) and checked out at noon. All very civilised. We adore the metro system in Paris (and most places) as it ma...