Day 321 - Touring - 23rd June, 2005

We set off early on the bikes again today. I took Julian and Sammy on the big bike (well bigger than normal as it's a 125cc), Julie, Mum and Paul went on the smaller bikes. We headed down the mountain to Gourdon and turned west heading up to Caussols. There are some caves/pot holes on the plain up there. We have been there many times before but the boys love the place. We went armed with torches and cameras and took a few shots whilst we explored the depths. They are not very big overall taking up no more room than half a football pitch but great fun all the same.

Our next stop was to find a place for lunch. We ended up in St. Vallier some 15 miles over the top of the mountains. We rode through clouds and cold patches but as we descended again the temperature would rise. At our destination, which had a huge green in the middle of town, rather like a British village green, we found a little restaurant and ordered a salade nicoise and some steak. Julie had brought some sandwiches for the boys. After lunch Julie and the boys played with the frizzbee on the green.

We then headed off the Grasse and to find our route back to Cipieres. On the way we stopped at the go-kart track in Pre-du-Lac. There are 3 circuits here; the beginners, the adults and the professionals. They have pictures of Schumacher practising here (he lives in Monaco not far away) as he used to be a karting champion and still has the odd outing.

We bought a load of tickets as we are expecting all of our family and their children to arrive in the next few days and it was cheaper to buy in bulk! We got 10 sessions for the kids and 5 for the adults. The boys set off first. Their last outing here 2 years ago was a little frantic but this year, with the tuition they have received, helping to ride the motorbikes and being 2 years older, they had a clear understanding of the controls and the limitations of the machines. Pretty soon they were skidding around corners and correcting their skids with opposite lock. It looked very professional.

Then it was time for Paul and I to take to the adults track. The 4 stroke carts are 270cc and although they do not rev very high, they kick out quite a grunt. In no time at all you can be travelling way faster than it's possible to get around a corner so it's all about restraint and finding the best line to attack. When you are going around a 180 degree hairpin it's extremely difficult to know how to approach it. We had loads of fun. The boys had another go on their circuit but it turned into a bit of a joke as they raced each other and started cutting corners to get the advantage. Boys!

They is much talk now between us as to what we will both do when we get home. We are hoping to get the boys into school for the last 2 weeks of term and we will be living in a flat in Ealing as our renters at 74 KEG want to stay another year. In any case we can't really afford to go back to the house without a significant income to pay the mortgage so we are happy for them to stay.

We just don't know what will transpire for me on the work front at the moment. It seems unlikely that a 47 (nearly 48) year old misfit like myself will be able to continue in the vein that I have been accustomed. Not that I should wish to replicate my previous employment regime. After all it was one of the reasons for packing up and going off in the first place. I really had had enough of 6 days a week and late nights. I have found myself of late waking at around 5 in the morning, not being able to get back to sleep again and then checking job sites on the internet. I even downloaded my CV the other day with a view to updating it.

Perhaps we should stay in France. The 35 hour maximum work week here is rigorously adhered to. Many employees taking an extra 2 or 3 days off per month (on top of the 6 to 8 weeks they get anyway) so that they don't over do their hours. Very little business is done here on a friday as so many people either are not in or take very short days in order to keep their hours down. The osteopath I visited here joked that many of the public employees (they still have publicly owned electricity, oil and phone companies here) were quite upset with the introduction of this new legislaton as they had never worked as many as 35 hours in a week. Very different culture to UK and the US where workaholism is the norm.

Day 314 - Cipieres, France - 16th June, 2005

The south of France, after all the places we have been to, still rates as one of my favourite places in the world. The scenery here in the mountains is spectacular. Today we took the motorbikes out (Mum has 4 for some reason) and went across the valley to the deserted village of Greoliers. The sun was shining and we could see for miles down the valley. We watched para-gliders jumping off the mountains behind us and gliding gracefully down to the village meadows. We took a picnic and sat beside a church built in the 10th century. We clambered over the remains of forts, gun turrets and an old village.

I have been coming here since I was 16. Mum has had a house in the village of Cipieres for 32 years. Dad was buried in the village cemetery 10 years ago. Apparently the story goes that Mum and I set off to travel trough France in a Citroen 2CV, just after her mother died, during a summer school holiday. As we travelled further south I was reported as urging her on so that we may be able to sample the fabulous beaches and discover if it was really true what they said about them (and the girls that were supposed to be on view!). I can't remember the truth of it anymore but it certainly doesn't sound like something I would be interested in seeing at the age of 16 - surely.

Within hours of arriving here back in 1973 we went into an estate agent and visited a couple of ramshakle buildings in some old villages about an hour from the coast. Mum and I were so excited about the prospect of buying a place we persuaded Dad to fly out the next weekend to have a look as well. We settled on a really nice place in the little village here of Cipieres. We were about to embark on a renovation of our bathroom back home in Kent but Dad gave us the alternative. We could have the bathroom or the house in France. He parted with the £4,000 and we took the house in France. Since then we have never looked back. Mum and Dad moved to a larger house about 10 years later and retired here are few years later.

We are able to ski in the mountains about 35 minutes from here and we can get to the coast in about 50 minutes. I must have visited this place 30 or 40 times since, sometimes coming down 2 or 3 times a year. I can remember driving down with friends for bank holiday weekends on several occasions. The last time Mum drove back to England her trip cost her £600 for the round journey (including an overnight stop). Easyjet has certainly changed the way people travel around here. It is now so much cheaper (and hugely more efficient) to catch a plane to Nice and rent a car.

The village is 600 years old at least and the house we have is probably at least 300 or 400 years old. It has been modified and renovated many times since but it retains a very rustic french charm.

Due to the Napoleonic laws regarding property that ensure all inherited property was divided up and given to all children equally, many villages and properties have been divided and sub-divided. Consequently in our "block" there are 3 households adjoining and underneath us. We all kind of live on top of each other but it seems to work.

The weather here in Cipieres generally is about 5 or 6 degrees cooler than the coast which can be quite oppressive in the summer months. At the moment we are in the mid to high 20s but have recently had a couple of cool rainy days.

The boys really like it here. The village is at the end of the road so there is no traffic passing through. They can roam and explore at their leisure. There is a tennis court here and they go and play just about everyday. We have also set up badminton in our street and they can play football in several courtyarded areas.

Unfortunately my camera has now completely broken and I am unable to send any pictures. I will try to find some on the web.

Day 304 - Cipieres, France - June 8th 2005

We arrived in France on Monday, having sailed from Patras in Greece to Venice on a super ferry almost twice as big as a cross channel one. We were collected by Paul and he took us to Padova in Northern Italy where we visited the Basilica of St. Anthony (did you know that many of the Catholic Saints have their tongues cut and put on display in their churches?).

We then drove home to Cipieres where Mum lives. It is a small perched village north of Grasse (which is in between Nice and Cannes) in the south of France. The weather here is quite cool (in comparison to what we are used to) probably in the mid 20s (deg C). My brother and his family and my sister and her family will be joining us at the end of the month and we will be having a big family re-union. There will be about 15 of us.

I know that I have many blogs to complete and over the next 3 weeks I will be filling in all the gaps, especially Kenya and our sailing around the Greek islands. So keep coming back for a look or subscribe to the blog so you are notified when I next update. Stay tuned folks.

Day 301 - Sailing back to Lavrion

We had another interesting sail back across the open waters of the gulf to get back to our home port of Lavrion. We stayed on the boat that night.

The next day and a diver was sent down to check over our hull. We were afraid he might see some damage to the rudder as we were sure that at some point it had hit something but he surfaced with a thumbs up and we were given back out deposit.

We traveled across the peninsula by taxi to Patras, a distance of 165 miles and went via the Corinth canal. This is an amazing structure, a deep channel chiseled out of the rock. We had a great talk with the taxi driver who told us a some taxis that had mileages of over 250,000 miles and were still going strong. Good old Mercedes Benz.

At Patras, we took a ferry to Venice, which was about 30 hours sailing, where we were met by Mum and driven to Cipieres. Venice was cold, grey and drizzling.

As we were going up the Grand Canal we saw the luxury motor boat Octopus, which is owned by Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft. It had a helicopter (and 2 helicopter pads) and under one of the flaps at the back, a miniature submarine.

Day 300 - Sailing from Aegina to Perdika

This morning it was crabbing time before we set sail for a trip around the island to Perdika

The sailing started off relatively calm but as we headed around the north side of the island it started blowing something fierce. We played with the inclinometer, seeing how far over we could lean the boat before someone chickened out.