Product Description

'We could bore ourselves to death, drink ourselves to death, or have a bit of an adventure...' When they retired, Terry and Monica Darlington decided to sail their canal narrow boat across the Channel and down to the Mediterranean, together with their whippet Jim. They took advice from experts, who said they would die, together with their whippet Jim. On the Phyllis May, you dive through six-foot waves in the Channel, are swept down the terrible Rhone, and fight for your life in a storm among the flamingos of the Camargue. You meet the French nobody meets - poets, captains, historians, drunks, bargees, men with guns, scholars, madmen - they all want to know the people on the painted boat and their narrow dog. You visit the France nobody knows - the backwaters of Flanders, the canals beneath Paris, the heavenly Yonne, the lost Burgundy Canal, the islands of the Saone, and the forbidden ways to the Mediterranean. Aliens, dicks, trolls, vandals, gongoozlers, killer fish and the walking dead all stand between our three innocents and their goal - many-towered Carcassonne.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4068 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 329 pages

Review
A retired British couple takes their canal boat on a cross-Channel expedition.When some pesky person asked why the author and wife Monica had abandoned the quiet pensioners' life and taken to the waterways, Darlington explained it as "an adventure before it's too late. They say at our age you are at the end of vigour." This became something of a running joke during their travels, since this lively pair was obviously far from decrepit. After all, they were adventurous enough to accept a friend's booze-soaked challenge to sail through England and across the Channel to France, then wind their way to Carcassonne in their 60-foot by 7-foot narrowboat, "a preposterous shape" for attempting this never-accomplished feat of seamanship. As company, they took along their trusty whippet Jim, "a dog that hates boating." Though the setup seems to promise a lighthearted travelogue, and Darlington does occasionally display a bracing, dry wit, their journey was often colored by bleak memories of the destruction and suffering the author witnessed as a child during World War II. In one the most moving instances of emotionally charged reminiscence, Darlington felt the presence of his long-dead father and longed "to press my face against his rough air-force trousers, and smell the tobacco and feel his hands on my head." Unfortunately, those moments of luminosity are rare in a text more notable for overblown vacation babble, long-winded stories, grand overstatement and pompous bombast - plus some daunting British slang impenetrable to all but the most seasoned Anglophile. Boat enthusiasts will appreciate the insider terminology about locks and dock life, however, and Darlington's gentle swipes at the French (whom he quite likes) are mildly amusing.Some entertaining moments amid the tedium, but best saved for a reader's retirement years, either as inspiration or to fill a lot of spare time. (Kirkus Reviews)

Good Book Guide
'Written with the author's glorious sense of humour, this is one of those journeys you never want to end'

Joanna Lumley
'A stunning book - racy, chatty, touching, and very, very funny'

Customer Reviews

I loved it
This is obviously a book that divides opinion. Personally I loved it and I had no problem getting into the story.

It seems like Terry just put his thoughts directly down on paper so sometimes they are a little inappropriate, as thoughts often are, but the book is all the funnier for it.

It probably helps if you like dogs (I have a whippet cross), you have an affinity with 'proper' pubs (oh yes) and if you are "of a certain age" (I'm not, but I'm not too far removed either). It probably also helps if you do a boring office job and dream of having a little adventure of your own (I do).

The experience of reading the book felt a bit like watching a particularly good episode of last of the summer wine or any episode of Dad's army. It's gentle, very English, always amusing and often very funny or very touching indeed. There is even the occasional 'shock' with a bit of swearing or Jim misbehaving.

I'm not a narrow-boat kind of person (yet), but it has made me think maybe I should go for that little adventure. After all, if Terry, Monica and Jim can do it ...

Cheers Terry!

Book of the summer
A wonderful travel book. Very funny but also a vivid portrait of rural France, capturing wonderfully so much that is simultaneously frustrating and enchanting about staying in France. But most of all, and as someone who has never been on a barge, this book provides a wonderfully captivating picture of life on board. And on top of all that this is a very well written book, awash with clever references. I loved it.

Poor, poor Monica
Enticing cover, original idea, adventure and perception . . . . . well if you are of a fairly limited social type this might stir you. But please, if anyone thinks this is how most English people behave it is a shame. I felt sorry for the poor wife to be stuck with a husband so selfish in his endeavours to drag her across parts of Europe without any art, good attitude or good humour, missing out on most of the plain good things to be had in England, Belgium and France. I couldn't even finish it