# France tour blog up (finally)



## geraldandannie (Jun 4, 2006)

The blog, detailing our fortnight in France, is now live at:

>> HERE <<

It runs to around 14,000 words - concise I ain't! And there's photos too, which breaks up the text. Guaranteed insomnia cure 8)

Gerald


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## teemyob (Nov 22, 2005)

*Blog*

Hello Gerald,

Very interesting, Like the layout of the Blog.

How did you blog it? I e. along the route by PC or on paper and blog later?

Trev


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## GypsyRose (May 9, 2005)

Very enjoyable reading .... thank you!! :lol:


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## Pusser (May 9, 2005)

I haven't had time to read it yet and will read it when I know I can savour each detail. I just know it is going to be good so I am looking forward to giving it a good looking at.


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## geraldandannie (Jun 4, 2006)

Aww - you're too kind. And Pusser, it doesn't come anywhere near the laughter iinducing tales which you tell, but I hope yoiu enjoy it anyway :wink: 

Gerald


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## artona (Jan 19, 2006)

Hi Gerald

I reckon you must employ an MHF team. Often away, 1400 word blog and probably the most prolific contributer to MHF at over 14 posts per day and rising. :lol: :lol: 

blog looks good, can you put it onto tape please so I can listen in the car

stew


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## freewheeler (Nov 6, 2005)

*Tour Reports*

I love these narratives of other M/H's tours & journeys. Excellent write-up and a nice mix of humour and good info. Keep them coming. (The only problem is they make me jealous!)


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## geraldandannie (Jun 4, 2006)

artona said:


> blog looks good, can you put it onto tape please so I can listen in the car


Thanks, Stew.

Interesting thought. I did a test recording once of one of my very short stories (just a few hundred words) for a podcast thing I wanted to do. Using a MAC ( :wink: ) I was able to play with all the settings, until I got a nice 'sound' to the recording. I think it was a modified "concert hall" setting.

Mind you, that load of drivel on there would probably take me days to record.

Oh, and I type fast, so I can have a huge outpouring of stuff. Never mind the quality, feel the width (remember that?). Empty vessels make most noice. Too many cooks ... errr :?

Gerald


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## DABurleigh (May 9, 2005)

_Formidable!_


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## JockandRita (Jun 1, 2005)

Hi Gerald,

Read the lot and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Cheers,

Jock.


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## Grizzly (May 9, 2005)

Many thanks Gerald. It cheered a miserable morning and made me dust off my passport in hope.

Are there more in the pipeline of past holidays ?

G


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## geraldandannie (Jun 4, 2006)

Thanks, Jock and Rita. I appreciate that.

Grizzly - this is our first year of motorhoming, so France was our first big holiday since we got the thing. We're going away at half term (between the NEC show and the Binton rally), so I'll do something for that.

Glad it cheered you up. Check out the traumas of levelling ramps in the Shepton report on my main blog.

Gerald


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## DABurleigh (May 9, 2005)

"Ramps were nonchalantly dropped and nudged into place with my foot – a particularly suave action, which I thought would get the watching audience nodding silently in appreciation."

Gerald,

I loved this; we must chat about writing at Binton.

I must confess that as a caravanner, I prided myself on reversing onto the pitch and levelling using the car. Some, though, have no shame. I, with many others, watched a chap making an absolute hash of reversing his caravan for at least ten minutes, before finally admitting defeat and getting out the magic mover and steering the van by hand. I know he's got to practice reversing somewhere, but if I were that incompetent I wouldn't choose to prove it in front of so many, particularly if I had a magic mover to hand. I was, nevertheless, left with a gnawing doubt that his values were more honorable than mine.

I guess I hold to the adage that it's one thing to be an idiot but quite another to open your mouth and prove it.

Dave


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## geraldandannie (Jun 4, 2006)

DABurleigh said:


> I guess I hold to the adage that it's one thing to be an idiot but quite another to open your mouth and prove it.


That is so true, Dave.

Although I've never been a caravanner, we did have a 14 foot cruiser on a trailer for a while (before we started moving up .. as we do :roll. I had worked out the principles of reversing using a trailer, but knowing what to do, and actually doing it ...

My first bit of reversing was when we launched it for the very first time, on the Thames. We had found a place at Ferry Road in Bray - little realising that it was right next to The Waterside Inn at Bray - owned by the Roux brothers. I approached the concrete ramp, swung the car, selected reverse, and executed a PERFECT reversing manoevre, with the boat entering the water in the middle of the ramp.

I must admit, there was a certain swagger to my walk, as we moved to the trailer, unwound the winch, and the boat slid neatly into the sun-kissed water. The sky was blue, and the sun was hot, and as I left Annie holding the mooring rope, and I drove away to the car park, I was looking forward to a beautiful day's meandering on the Thames. I even took a picture of the boat and Annie on its first launching.

When I returned, I realised something was wrong. The boat shouldn't be sitting that low in the water, should it? I peered in ... at about a foot's-worth of the Thames sitting in the bottom of the boat.

So it was back to the car park, bring the trailer around again, this time making a complete hash of reversing, taking three attempts to get the trailer somewhere near. Under the watchful gaze of Diana Ross and entourage from the balcony of the restaurant, I struggled to haul what was now a very heavy boat off the bottom of the river, and back onto the trailer.

I pulled the boat and trailer clear, and the problem was immediately obvious. Some idiot had forgotten to tell us about the drain hole in the back of the hull, and an even bigger idiot hadn't realised what that threaded brass thing was in the packet of "bits and pieces" the previous owner had given us.

Gerald


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