Vanity, vanity, all is vanity

In the end it all comes down to vanity publishing. Mea culpa. You can dress it how you like.

Blogging, social media (whatever that is really), private web sites. Commercially dressed they appear as Blogspot, Wordpress, YouTUBE, Facebook, Twitter et al. Even semi-serious stuff like Linked-In and portals with a purpose, like Friends Reunited, Where Are You Now still come down to people like me in our millions writing stuff in the vague hope that somebody will care.

The reality is that in this brave new world of the internet its the traditional media still counts, that still generates an audience. Of course early adopters always had the best chance to stand out from the crowd - since at the time the crowd was pretty thin (not counting all that porn). Guido Fawkes is one good example; Stephen Fry another - but it was his existing traditional media-based fame that drew the crowds.

The best advice anyone could offer in the early 90s to would-be web entrepreneurs was by all means build your site, make it look good and perform well BUT make darn sure you get the conventional media to write about it or your site can hang in cyberspace like a weak embarrassment. Last-Minute.com relied on heavy main media advertising. They all did.

And frankly you will work hard to find anyone truly made famous solely by their internet presence. E-fame may well come but we are a long way from the moment when it will be enough merely to launch yourself on a web-site, hook it up to Facebook, Twitter et al and sit back and wait. You will indeed wait a long time.

Its a bit like TV back in the early days. Forget the Coronation which was a kick start; think daily broadcasting. Until the traditional media started carrying the schedules and reviewing the programmes it was all going a bit slow. Even now, ask yourself how often you choose a programme solely on what you see on the TV screen itself? Odds on the idea springs from some other, probably traditional media trigger. Instant hard disk p;programming is a help but you have to be in the room to hit the magic button.

So if you will accept for now that all this explosion of material follows an honourable ancient tradition then what is Vanity Publishing and how did it start?

I turned first to Wikipedia. Now Wikipedia is an archetypal form of the Vanity art since it is that most prestigious of publications - dictionary and encyclopedia. And yet the content is provided by us, the public. Of course Wikipedia does not acknowledge its contributors directly unless they are moderators so the vanity bit slightly obscure. But to be frank why else would you bother? The purpose is to show what you know.

How it defines Vanity Publishing is this:

Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of (the) entire process including design (cover/interior), formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR. The author can do it all themselves or outsource all or part of the process to companies that offer these services such as Lulu, iUniverse, CreateSpace and a multitude of others.

In 2008, for the first time in history, more books were self-published than those published traditionally. In 2009, 76% of all books released were self-published, while publishing houses reduced the number of books they produced.[1]

That last says it all - once the internet and the web had taken off the opportunities were enormous. But Wiki is still concentrating on The Book. And it suggests that it is NOT Vanity Publishing if the writer contracts with a publisher to share the gains. Sorry guys but without the vanity there would be no publishing; even with a partner. Nobody slaves their lives over their first novel to pop it in a drawer and forget about it. Unless of course they really, really know it is no good.

The OED is more direct:

publishing on behalf of and at the expense of an author who pays for the production and often for the marketing of his book.

Plenty of companies offer the service and it does not start off very expensive - even a top publisher will do the job for less than £800. Mind you, they might have typeset it, given you a designed cover, registered the book and got an ISB number and few more things that matter but in reality it will be up to you to get bit 'seen'. And that will mean getting the traditional media to notice it. A web site review will help, on Amazon say, but if someone is going to pay a few pounds for your work they will want a decent reason to do so.

But this article is Vanity Publishing, pure and simple. My blogs, any blog is the same. Even if you get to be Guido Fawkes fame is the spur, vanity the cause. But that doesn't make it worthless or even pointless (although it can feel like it if nobody seems to be reading).

Firstly I was a professional (yeah, really!) and so this blogging keeps my mind at work and my hand in. I admit to only doing desk research these days. I have not the cheek to phone anyone without the justification of a publication behind me.

Secondly by storing it on my blog I can refer back to what I have written before, using old ideas, recycling older material or better still bringing stuff up to date. In the process I update my personal computer, my brain, and hopefully improving my modernity of thought in this changing world.

A work of fiction is perhaps not the same but I have started novels and got past chapter one before realising that, in all probability I am not quite up to that mark. No novel is entirely out of the mind. Existing knowledge, shored up by reference and research into less understood aspects of the plot improves the work. For that the brain benefits.

Of course there is a subtle difference between vanity publishing and vanity media as I shall call it. If you come across an example of vanity publishing you will inevitably wonder how many rejections are represented in the author's publishing costs. And from the few I have part read I am guessing quite a lot.

Having written that paragraph I am forced to pause. How many have actually stumbled upon my scribblings, read a bit and moved on never to return. Oh dear. Vanity... all is vanity.

See also http://www.woodses.co.uk

Swedes win contract for OUR school; mystery team runs the show

Read this and wonder... Who are these people? Who chose the Sabres team? How? AND how come the work has gone to Sweden? Cameron's big idea about private sector is OK; just wrong country!

The website says nothing about who the Sabres team is - just mugshots and names. It is silent, even in the FAQ about who they will answer to. There is little about where the money is coming from - mostly us taxpayers of course. No justification for spending it all in Sweden instead of locally. Even our local paper cannot see how daft this is.

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/swedes_win_21m_free_school_deal_in_brandon_1_1154516

Swedes win £21m free school deal in Brandon - Education - Eastern Daily Press

www.edp24.co.uk

A £21m contract has been awarded to a private Swedish company to provide education at a proposed free school in Brandon.

Time brings moderation to all things....

Back in August last year after the riots, views on the motives and causes were hot and mostly ill-considered. It is interesting now to hear men such as Iain Duncan Smith beginning to acknowledge that the causes are much deeper rooted and less easy to fix than some of his government fellows have thought.

And good to hear it - like Heseltine before him familiarity with reality leads to a dawning realisation that in politics black and white are not the only colours. I repeat here some of what I wrote back then. There had been articles locally as well as nationally that argued the riots and looting were just plain old criminality, greed, immorality and lack of respect. They were compared to historic events in Brixton and Toxteth.

I asked then and still do:

"Why now exactly? Why in so many places? If those riots were the same then you must agree that a red-neck Tory's solution for Toxteth would commend itself surely? Michael Heseltine no less saw the immediate need to rescue a lost generation from poverty, inertia and rejection. And a fairly blue if liberal tinged Judge after Brixton saw much the same need."

But the local paper started to balance things which led me to write:

"These lead on to a more considered assessment; one which I believe includes some here and now possibilities that are new and very worrying. The riots began for a fairly traditional reason in Tottenham, much as they had in the same borough years earlier and for an amazingly similar reason - possible police over-action in the line of duty. But then come the new factors:

• Social networking spread the news faster than had ever been possible before and to a much wider audience that was blogged into awareness of what was happening.
• Gangs, and they are pretty new in the modern form, also use these vectors to communicate along with encrypted BlackBerry messaging.
  
• Youngsters (that's up to about 25 these days) now routinely attend events of all sorts at the drop of a tweet, email or text. They are alerted to something 'going down' and they want to be 'in it'.
• Today's economic woes mean that many of these younger people are unemployed, under-privileged, unmotivated but they are also subject to the same massive aspirational pressures of modern marketing and consumer goods as the haves. So when the news of looting spread they were all too ready to join in; even the unwise hangers on got their noses in this trough. We should note that the goods taken were very largely fashion clothes, sports good and electronics and the riots in the usual places for such lawlessness.
  
• New factor three is that the institutions of this country have ruined their own right to respect by their own greed and avarice. The criminal risk-taking of the bankers and financial institutions got us here and that has been well publicised and especially by bloggers and tweeters. The criminal greed and avarice of our politicians feeding furiously at the gravy train of MPs allowances eliminated their right to respect. The police, especially in London, have been shown to have taken their part in the disgraceful activities of (at least) the Murdoch media. They too have done too much of late to deserve much respect.
  
• All this has filled the blogosphere and twitterland with ranting and raving fit to inflame even the calmest, coolest teen or twenty.."
  

I ended by asking:

"So when the hyped up, aggravated, aspirational gangs and their hangers on were called to 'rave 'n' riot' they spared no one, respected no one and behaved as charged - like feral animals. (It is correct) that we need to set a new moral compass for our age. But we won't do that by being in denial that all this is our own fault. We need to work and pay if we want a new tomorrow - the emperor won't get a new suit of clothes by cutting back on the cloth."

My views have not changed much - but I am very glad to see that reality has given Duncan Smith a similar enlightenment as that enjoyed by the blond mace waver of the 80s!

Technology to blame for the street of shame?

When I finally put pixel to plastiscreen over the Leveson inquiry I took the view that maybe things are different today. But I have thought longer and harder and now take a different view. . I still weep and cringe with shame; still ponder what on earth has happened to what we charmingly thought of as a profession. But then I wondered; is it really so different?

Maybe it is just the technology that has changed our behaviour. We can do now what we would have done then, so we do?

Back when I started out as a journalist in 1959 in a dusty old office in Hornsey, north London struggling to master a decrepit Royal upright, horizontal strike typewriter there was a one-liner doing the rounds. "To the average journalist ethics is a county north of Kent..." Not funny really, now I think about it.

Journalists were already pretty low in public esteem. My school howled with anguish at my career choice. My father - a London copper - was seriously concerned. And I was the second of his sons to take the devil's silver. When my later-to-be-wife told her head teacher her plans to join her local paper she said to her mother: "Mrs Smith, you might as well let her go on the street!"

I worked my way to Fleet Street (before I left the job) and I did indeed learn some dodgy ways to operate.

I learned how to blag information. Direct lies were rarely necessary; an innocent voice and a modicum of charm was enough. Hey presto, an ex-directory phone number.

I learned to doorstep. A charming sympathy, some soothing words and you were in. You left with a treasured picture of the deceased/victim/alleged perpetrator.

I knew ho to block a call box line so my copy got to the office ahead of the competition. I learned to read upside down and back to front so I could get what it actually said in the police Occurrences Book, court register etc. I learned to write in my pocket so the victim did not know they were on the record. And more.

Along the way I knew that direct bribery was rare but it did happen and the Soho police scandals among others proved the media was not above bribery and corruption. Yet even so it was mainly either between rogues either side of the tracks or in the search for corruption in public office.

Back at the ranch, even in Fleet Street, if a picture came in showing an unfortunate pose of an innocent person, however famous, it would be binned or at worst filed against stormier times. And only politicians stood the risk of facial postures that matched their words. Even then some degree of compassion was usually shown.

We did use some pretty hard-bitten agencies - the famous or infamous FSNA among them (those who know, will know). And, true at Heathrow, agency hacks would trail stars and wannabes through the terminal (just the one terminal and mostly just the one hack). But mostly they were at least able to walk steadily, not dodge and dash for the exits with hounds in hot pursuit.

And editors did set standards. We were expected to have decent notes and be able to back them, to check vital facts and, if we did not know but it was a reasonable guess we were expected to say so.

You could never have got away with a strange and unusually large item on your expenses - no managing editor would sign it without his boss's OK! The diarist who worked 300 yards off Fleet Street and got away for a while charging a taxi back from the Wig and Pen IN Fleet Street was found out (we reckoned that after lunch at the Wig a taxi was his only certain way of getting back to the ranch!).

So, by the mid 70s I was looking for different way to use my limited talent as a writer and crossed the tracks to Public Relations. Still not what my mum would have called 'a real job' but strangely more honest. After all, everyone knew now what my agenda really was.

Today I begin to wonder whether technology has more to do with what we see at Leveson than a worsening of moral standards.

Back in the day of no motor-drive the snappers task was to get a GOOD picture and not waste valuable film that would waste time being devved. The motor drive gave the chance to take the shot between the good ones.

Then came digital and wasting film was a thing of the past. A brief survey of the multitide of frames and the embarrassing knicker moment was on page three.

Couple this with motor bikes and you can chase you quarry to a kill; literally sometimes.

Then comes the computer, the internet, web sites, mobile phones. Anything is possible. The move from simple blagging to wholesale hacking is but a step. The change from good taste to indecent intrusion a mere millisecond. No need to doorstep; with a bit of real hacking you can be inside their voice mails, their hard drives - everywhere.

And the vast array of opportunities to be 'seen', to be 'famous' to be a 'celebrity' means there are ever more candidates to be intruded upon, scandalised scandalously. A slip of a tweet, a chump on a facebook, a nude on a tube - so much to compete with the paparazzi and the hack that they have to be really inventive now.

So here we are today with the reality that merely being famous is enough to unleash the dogs of war on you. Speaking out of turn when your are famous will get you hunted down and pilloried. And even become the victim of actual lies and invention. Never mind the hacking, utterly illegal anyway. This goes far deeper.

So shame on them and shame on me and shame on all of us. They do it, we buy it.

Hate to say it but it is time for legally backed self-regulation. Yes, I do not want a regulated media; not in a world where special interest groups already have too much power. But newspaper and periodicals are already licensed.

So let's turn the editor's code into the articles of agreement to get a license. And make breaches punishable by removing that licence.

And then make it that only licensed publications will be VAT free or in anyway protected by the newspaper libel laws. Hit them in the pocket whatever other penalty they may face. One strike and you are out even?

Meanwhile, I still say there are a few senior hacks starring at Leveson who are looking good for a while at her majesty's pleasure - and I don't mean the theatre in Haymarket but the one down Pentonville way.

Facebook faces up and marks the spot

Facebook owns up and a million bloggers dive to the keyboards and Ipads. Mea culpa says Mark and about time too. http://preview.tinyurl.com/d7qcnkb

Like the rest I could not resist a comment. My take is the same as it has always been when our beloved internet demonstrates that the problem is the human being not the interface, or inYERface as it tends to become.

Problem is that each new technology creates its own monsters because that's the nature of the human condition. The invention of fire led to the first home burning down! Wall art includes pornography just as mass printing, the television, video and the internet have done. And each event initially dwarfed the benefits and threatened the development. Even one to one comms like the telephone allowed heavy breathers!

So with the internet. When Mark Zuckerburg added functional inter-mail to an interactive web site he took the nascent social media into new territory. And he and his people made some silly errors along the way that could have scuppered an idea that, as it matures, increasingly looks a Good Thing. What was wrong was that it took a Federal Court to make them accept that you cannot take people for a ride. But hey, look at the UK and Leveson - Mucky Murdoch actually killed the NoW in the mistaken belief that it would all go away!

So good on yer Mark. Now, there are a few other things you could sort out. Like ensuring the conent is a bit more moderated so innocent people do not end up being villified by anonymous monsters.

Cat stolen from under car!

OK, wait for it. The latest theft de jour is stealing your catalytic converter to get the platinum catalyser in it! Oh yes it is.

My daughter went to her car this week, started it up, thought 'bag of nails this morning'. Then the penny dropped (or rather £200 quid plus) - someone had crawled under the car and snipped the cat box out with a pair of shears.

So be aware, your early getaway may have been preceded by an earlier getaway!

So many choices - so little broadband!

Today, yet another rural broadband solution has popped up with little warning. This one is on page 13 of the EDP and has Norfolk Rural Community Council ( see http://www.norfolkrcc.org.uk/wiki/index.php/About) as part of the project.

It is a wireless network solution from a company called ThinkingWISP (see http://www.thinkingwisp.co.uk/) and is also backed by Anglian Farmers ( see http://www.angliafarmers.co.uk/content/home.asp).

It is similar to the solution we have been developing for Lyng, using a wireless transmission from Norwich Airport to a mast at Marsham, north west of the city. It is planned to serve an area around from Erpingham in the north to Drayton,south and from Reepham west to Colitishall east.
Service will be between 3.5Mbs and 13 with data limits between 10 and unlimited. Prices are from £15.99 a month to a business plus service at £50.99. Subscribers will need a suitable antenna and installation as per our set up (no costs is indicated) and the service is encrypted and asynchronous. So it has more potential than ours.

Its sudden appearance without previously showing on the radar is similar to the diocesan project called WIspire. This denies any criticism of a backward looking church by taking a fat fibre pipe to a church at Spixworth (north of Norwich) and then developing a fully meshed wireless network using church spires. It gives ley lines a whole new meaning!

What gets me is that these projects seem to have deliberately kept under wraps. Yet the young CEO of the NRCC says they have 500 expressions of interest already. They got £37,000 funding from Defra and the EU.
I strongly believe that this piecemeal process, of which we seem to be an unwilling part, is not in the best interests of the community at large. Any one of these projects could go under leaving hundreds back at square one - or, worse not connected at all even to BT.

Chiles and Bleakely to leave Daybreak

Well who would have thought it - anyone except the fools at ITV. They hire a pair brilliant at an evening show, offering oodles of cash to tempt them to a breakfast show. And it doesn't work. Blow me down they could have guessed. What goes down well with a glass of sauvignon blanc and an olive is not at all the same with a mug of tea and a bacon sarnie!

OK, they've got it out of their system and ITV. Now, can someone hire them properly - she's lovely and he's a charming if goonish geezer. Watch out the One Show, Two may be coming!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15818148

BT wants to steal bandwidth - again!

Yet again BT is flogging its FON servicve to customers without warning them that they lose part of their bandwidth. FON dellivers free access to mobile users via existing BT subscribers with wi-fi routers across the country and is a very good idea BUT. The but is that if you have 8meg giving up 200k is flea bite. But out here in carrot land we get 400k if we are lucky. Handing back to BT up to 200k strikes me as a bad deal. Worse the ad that drops through as UCE (Spam) does not make this clear. Seems to me misleading at the very least.

Lyng to get broadband at last

Just received this from my colleague on the Lyng Broadband group - hooray!

Hello All,

I am delighted to tell you that Norfolk County Council has now formally approved the plans for the wi-fi broadband service in Lyng as part of a three-village pilot project. Work is now underway to acquire planning permission and draw up a timescale for the roll-out of the service. This is a major and important stage in the development of what has been and continues to be a complex project. As soon as we have been given the details of the timescale we shall be able to move towards pricing the options that Lyng people will have for purchasing and fitting receivers. These will involve NO monthly charges – the service offered by the County is similar to the library service ie free to use. There will however be set-up costs involved for receiving equipment and installation. The action group is working to provide suitable options to suit the community. The next stage will be to publish the timescale and confirm the people who are registering a firm intention to take up the service. I would just like to say thank you to all the people who have worked on, or actively supported, this project,  and look forward to being able to tell you more soon. Paddy McHugh, Lyng Broadband Action Group 

A brighter day thanks to science

One about me and the wonders of science. Yesterday I let someone cut two holes in my eyes. It did not hurt and I am glad I had it done.
It's like this. My mum had glaucoma and when I showed an uppish pressure at Specsavers a while back they had to refer me to the hospital.
And now I have new drainage holes that will stop me going blind. Well effectively. 'Cos the glaucoma I had was called narrow angle and could/would have closed up the light entry if pressure got too high. Which glaucoma means it would/could.
So they do an iridotomy with a laser gun which this charming eastern lady fired at my eye. A lot. But it did not hurt. It scared OK but without rational cause! They give various unguents to make it possible and painless. Eventually the tiny bursts of laser light get through the iris and you feel a kind of tug in the middle of your head. Weird but harmless. And that's it. The higher pressure eye took a bit more: "I am just going to widen the hole" she said casually and I quaked but it was OK.
Apparently it does not heal up and if I start to get any problem as the glaucoma worsens in later life they can make the holes bigger.
What a wonder science is. And hopefully, as they treat more and more, they will save the NHS and the welfare state billions. Virtuous circle. But Cameron and co note - it takes investment in research and development and equipment and training to get this far. Think on chaps, think on.

Cut diesel price - get economy moving!

I see the debate about fuel prices has started again. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15730087

Well the fastest way for government to stimulate business and the economy would be to either cut diesel to same price as petrol or give business an equalising tax rebate for all fuel used. Simples?

Penny Red: Notebook: responsibility and writing

Penny Red: Notebook: responsibility and writing: Hello, the blog. It’s been a very strange few months. Things have been moving fast and, due to an auspicious combination of luck, class priv...

I should give up really - this lady is really good.

At last - I'm back

It is an age since I blogged anything and today it is mainly to announce that I have finally set up a web site. I first used the internet in 1991 and by '94 I was working for PIPEX in Cambridge and web sites were one year old. And Berners Lee was still famous! I thought about it then but was too busy and having too much fun anyway. And even when I retired their did not seem enough time. Finally there is. So www.woodses.co.uk is a small contribution to the global confusion that is the internet.

Adventure before dementia!

June 29 - This is a very late blog. I am looking at the almost white cliffs of Dover from Calais. Yes, the weather is that good. But I shall back up a bit. Quite a bit.

Our time in the Loire was interesting if a bit disappointing. Next stop was a place called Louviers, just south of Rouen. The town was ordinary, the site satisfactory and quiet, so J liked it. We saw much as we intended of the twisting Seine. We visited Chateau Gaillard, which was Richard Couer de Lion's castle. It was brilliant as the pictures show but a nice moment was meeting an American. Charming and helpful but most of all Alaskan! We were too astonished to ask about the Palin person. I made his day by telling him he had met an English Richard at Richard the First's castle - I am sure he will enjoy re-telling that minor coincidence.

The Seine is a fascinating river and surrounded by interesting places - not including a town called Elbeuf; wow is that nasty! But La Bouille is a delight, Jumieges a joy and its abbey ruins amazing.

But most of all we spent a day in Honfleur. Few tourist traps exceed their press but this one does, and especially on such a superb sunny day . It is a brilliant town. Splendid harbour and a camp site on the edge of the town centre and the crossing to Le Havre or Caen would be splendidly easy; Calais not hard.

But soon enough we were off north to a site at a town called Guines - pronounced as the first part of Guiness but with no esses. The site is on a small chateau and brilliantly well designed and managed for its purpose - which is as a transit camp for Calais. We chose it, as so many others, via the ACSI scheme through the camping club. So did everyone else. As a result it is an English home from home. about 90% are brits on ther way up or down. But it is a very good site and we shall use it again - much better than those we have used on the UK side of the ditch!

The area is pretty boring - rather like a cross between Kent and Norfolk actually. Some downs but a lot just flat. Some huge fields and some market gardening. But we got sorted and made a fine crossing - watching Kent get bigger and France smaller all the way - never done that before; always been some rain, mist or a sea fret to spoilt the view. Dover was as frenetic as Calais had been, the M20 the usual nightmare, the Dartford crossing gave us our first traffic jam in 14 weeks and added an hour to an easy journey! And this was the first tolled road that did NOT accept a card. So, since all our english money hade been nicked in Chartres, we had to stop at a service station just to get money to pay the toll! Happy to be back home but the UK has a bit to learn!

And the garden was a nighmare of dead and dying plants! Janet has bought some instant colour and planted up, hacked down the excess and the dead and it now looks OK.

So we start to plan our next trip ... ADVENTURE BEFORE DEMENTIA!

Castles, palaces and sand banks....

June 14 - So here we are in La Loire again only this time it is near Orleans which we had not visited before. I always feel, when I reach the Loire, that I am as it were at home or at least

nearly there. I think this is because, in our younger days, we would arrive at Calais or wherever and put pedal to the metal and hot foot it to somewhere on the Loire, thus securing our berth in France.

While we have had actual holidays only at Saumur and Chinon many short stops have taken in Angers, Blois, Ambois. We have been to some eight or nine Loire chateuax but some of the cream has evaded us. Of course the Loire chateaux do rather stretch the English value of the word itself. French can be a bit short of words as I have already noted in this context. These are mostly palaces or at least grand houses. Since the French use chateau to mean castle they are understating it in these parts. We English have to hold our breath rather as we decide if the ornate, grand and palatial mansion before us can even provide the slightest indication that it was once a castle. Irrelevant in a sense but I am a castle man first and a grand mansion man second. More English Heritage than National Trust. And these would all be in the NT not the EH you see.

Now to the Loire, alongside which we are camped, though we cannolt see it for the anti-flood levee. We are at a town called Jargeau - as in soft g-ar-soft g-OH. Freed by Joan of Arc soon after Orleans and very proud of it. I just rest on the knowledge that it was the French who named here heritic at first and the Burgundian French who burned the great heroine, not the accursed English. Strange the way it goes.

But the Loire. A grand and huge river, largest in France. It starts way down in Allier where it shares its head waters with the Lot and the Allier. But the Lot heads south and west. The

Loire heads north and is for its first couple of hundred kilometres a wild and unruly river crashing though the central massif. After gathering up the waters of the Allier it begins to trend west and after Nevers enters the Paris Basin, a huge and flat area of soft sandstones and mud. The Loire become the river we best know, slow, lugubrious, meandering unmercifully and braided into islands and sand banks. It is home to slow fish, sluggish eels, hungry pike and even hungrier herons and egrets. This was also fighting country, as the former Normans fought the French and became the proto-English fighting the French. By the time they had sorted things out the mighty castles were redundant and rapidly became the palaces and stately homes of the French nobility. The power and the glory went to their heads which were rapidly removed by the French revolutionaries.

Some chateaux were promptly destroyed by the Revolution and down south the remnants of these castles can still be seen. Some are crumbling ruins, some are splendid new homes, privately owned and sometimes open to us plebs. But the Loire was prime real estate and the Revolution needed money so a great many grand palaces remained and were soon re-assigned to new nobility or old nobility that had seen the light of Republicanism soon enough to survive. Hundreds more were held by the state as cultural heritage. Many became Hotels de Ville and even Mairies. Many more were sold. Then, years later in the 20th century more were sold. In the 60s there was a major sale, many more in the 80s. And incredibly yet more are for sale right now - get your millions ready. For you too could own a French chateau, along with the cost of upkeep....

The numbers of 'chateaux' in France is breathtaking - there are 800 in the Dordogne alone! I have a book that lists the majority that are open to the public. It runs to a thousand pages

and none get more then half a page...

But the Loire is an impressived river for sure. I just find the area dull. The architecture is bland, the land is sandy, flat and tedious. The culture is more north than midi. It has been improved by the development of footpaths and cycleways. The tourist industry has perked up the commerce - even if the restaurant trade has become tediously uniform and greedy.

Prices are high or silly for meals out. The beef is still tough and tasteless, the lamb stringy. Fresh milk is at last reasonably available but ordinafry cream is still rare (not that we do not like creme fraiche; it just ain't the same). Loire wine is essentially insipid due mainly to the range of grapes grown (honourably excepting Muscadet, some Touraine Sauv Bs and a few others I cannot afford!).and the sandy soil. Everything improves on the edges of the Loire basin of course where some better limestone drainage helps the vines struggle a bit more.

June 15 - The campsite we are on is a classic bit of good and bad. Generous sites and some good shade cannot really make up for the rather tired (our end of the site) sanitation, the

total lack of a proper vidoir for the chemical loos and the provision of one washing machine for a site with 150 emplacements! But we get 10 amp leccy so not all is lost. Of course

getting a peg into the sand and gravel soil is a joke but then few others have our sort of awning!

Tomorrow is Orleans and the weekly shop - did some today at a small market in Jargeau. But essentials, gas etc means a grim day in Carremarche or Interclerc or something on the outskirts

of Orleans. That'll be after we see the centre ville and what is reported to be a disappointing city.

Of bonjours, ancient men - and a lost claw...

June 7 - Some more amazing days here. Have to say the Dordogne is very lovely. Apricot stone, splendid buildings if rather a lot of new stuff. Lovely valleys, cloaked in deepest green. Too many suffering geese and ducks for me, to be honest and far too many people. It is so busy compared to so much of France. Vast numbers of English but also of Dutch - they seem to be the next highest if not even, as travellers, the largest number. They are a bit stand-offish I am sorry to say. Tend not to pass the time of day and if they do it can be a bit of a challenging process. One in particular greeted my cheery Bonjour with "Good morning - so much nicer don't you think?" I snapped not really and added that we were in France after all but they had strode on regardless. Another couple blithely pushed in front at a market stall and when the stallholder peered round them to serve me were very stroppy.

On the site there have been four vans in a row with the Dutch couple sat outside. They tend to line up under their awnings facing out, having parked their cars off their pitches. I walk past with the dog and say four Bonjour or Bonsoius and even add an occasional Good Morning. I get at best two responses. The French and the Brits always respond or speak first.

We have visited many places - Castle Beynac, La Roche Gagiac, Domme, Les Jardins des Eyrignac, Sarlat (again and again), into Brive but better to villages like Terrasson, St Amand de Coly, St Genies and on and on really. All lovely or grand or impressive or all three at once.If it had not rained today (first real rains for weeks to be honest) we wpould have been in Sarlat again (and still will if it clears up). Tomorre I want to visit the home of anthopology in France at St Eysies de Tursac. We have visited the village before and the valley of the Vezer we have mentioned. But Eyzies has a museum of prehisory that is highly regarded world-wide. The valley is full of discoveries going back tens of millenia. This is where the definitions of Neanderthal and Cro Magnon man were established. Lascaux and its painting are up the valley, there are more such sites everywhere. We have seen some and also some amazing sculptures of animals in relief dating back 18,000 years. Representational art if a very old skill.

One further drama for us - Olly has ripped out a claw while careering around with another dog! Bled like crazy but he seemed cool (more than I was!) and we have bound it and treated it. Seems to be settling down but the rain is a problem as we do need to keep it dry for a few days. Janet is currently out trying to buy cheap (in France? Huh) baby bootees as covers for his bandages!

But after that it will be clear up and set off for Argenton sur Creuse, north about 180k and home to a lot of more recent stuff - Roman. It looks an interesting area and has escaped our attention until now. A few days there will see us heading up to a site near Orleans and the Loire. Its a section we have not visited and so has some chateaux (usually the palatial rather than castle type) we have not visited. A week or so there and we head for Rouen which will feel like we are nearly home! Then it really is a few days near Calais, vet visit, shopping natch and the ferry. After three months our own beds will feel good, I have to say.

Of castles and palaces and buying your own...

May 22 - Today we set off for our next stop in the Dordogne, or since there is no such place really Perigord/Quercy but about 15 k from the River Dordogne on a pretty little site (we hope) at Salignac Eveyques. One significant hill on the route of about 160 kilometres. Here's hoping.

May 24 - We are now settled in on a charming little site, well shaded and we need it. It hit 33C yesterday and not a breath of wind. Today has been a little cooler. This is an area we have visited before of course but it is 20 odd years ago. Today our first impressions are that it is indeed as beautiful as we remember and as it is said to be. But today it is full of recently restored and new houses. Most are in the charming apricot stone of course, although fewer today have stone lauzes for roofing tile; most are tiled. And it is busy. Where we drove for miles in the Tarn and Averyron without seeing a car here there is traffic in most places and some of it a bit too fast for its own or our good frankly. The English are here in numbers of course but so far less visible than we expected (or was it feared?).

June 1 - Pity such a nice place should make a liar of me! I jest in a way but we were planning to leave today and even told Peter and Karen so. We are not. This place just has so much to see and do that we are staying another week. We might move the van a bit but I doubt it. If the road north to Brive and the A20 link proves good for the van and our 'problem' then we shall stay (It did so we do/are... whatever). Even more of a pity that we did not read Peter's mail in time to take up his offer of a week in their place. It is ideally suited and would have made a nice change. However we shall just have to drive a bit further. The good thing is - not ver far. By chance we chose a site that is kind of triangulated on the best bits of the Dordogne. We have revisited the Vezere (25k) and extended our knowledge up to Brive (25k), strode the lovely streets of Gageac and Beynac (25k) and a string of other delightful villages. We have fallen in love with Sarlat le Caneda (28k) which seems to have smartened up a whole lot since we went there 18 or so years ago. It had beautiful buildings but also a lot of traffic. Now the traffic is virtually gone by pedestrianising and buildings are apricot delicious as they must have been before the coming of the motor car. Joy! And it is also both a vibrant commercial centre with brilliant local and chain shops but also has this charming, busy, bustling medieval heart. Mostly gew-gaw shops and cafes but plenty of real artisans working in ateliers visible when you visit. So utterly unlike the sterility of, say Carcassone.

We have done three castles of which our first visit to Beynac (how did we miss it last time!?) was each one so far has raised the same question - they were all sold into private ownership sometime in the 60s. I shall research this - seems like the heritage of la belle France was sold off - Pompidou? But the good news is they are all open to the public so I guess it may just be a kind of privatised National Trust/English Heritage? We shall see.

Actually the comparisoin with our English situation reminds me - France has a limited vocab sometimes. Chateau translates as castle but doubles for what might better be called Palaces, especially along La Loire. Equally what we would see as a small castle ends up being called a Donjon or even just a Tour. In fact France is awash with fortified buildings of which a fair proportion really are Castles but by calling and marking them all on maps as 'chateaux' one is confused. Further south we enjoyed a very fine fortified manor house called a chateau and then drove a mere couple of kilometres to be confronted with a truly castle-like Manoir! Towers, walls with machiolations, proper gatehouses and all that. Bof, as I believe the Frenchman might say in exasperation. But I read that the area we call Dordogne (essentially Perigord, Quercy and few bits more has, wait for it, 800 chateuax. I doubt there are that many in all of England, even including Wales and Scotland. Oh, yes and a fair few were built by the alleged English, who were of course Normans, who were ex-patriot Norsemen residing in France and having invaded and conquered England! Oh, and their successors the Plantagents of course. But the French enjoy the historic enmity with England as much as we do so the facts never stand in the way of a good Histoire de la Chateau! Thus the castle built by Brits is referred to as having been 'held by the English for x years' until recaptured by the brave and daring Duke Tiddley de la Poshplace. Don't you love 'em?

Heading north and hoping for flat roads...

May 15 - Today, Sunday we went back to lovely St Antonin Noble Val for its big market. We hoped for much and got more. The town sits in a stunning (OK ' majestic' said some noble in French) valley. Opposite the town is a 100 metre high cliff about four kilometres long. It is vertical, or appears to be. The river is the Aveyron, a tributary of the Tarn eventually and quite delightful. The town is a maze of ancient streets and houses, some beautiful, some impressive and some sad and forlorn. It has a covered market which is still used although today the weekly market spills out into many more streets. It is brilliant, full of real artisan and fermier products sold by enthusiasts. Joy!

This was also the day on which we decided to stay here another week. If we ever won the lottery this is where we would buy a house, probably along the Carou river between Cordes and Monesties. Wonderful, quiet, pretty, charming. Oh yes please....

May 22 - Today we set off for our next stop, in the Dordogne, or since there is no such place really Perigord. But we shall be about 15 k from the River Dordogne on a pretty little site (we hope) at Salignac Eveyques. One significant hill on the route of about 160 kilometres. Here's hoping.

May 24 - We are now settled in on a charming little site, well shaded and we need it. It hit 33C yesterday and not a breath of wind. Today has been a little cooler. This is an area we have visited before of course but it is 20 odd years ago. Today our first impressions are that it is indeed as beautiful as we remember and as it is said to be. But today it is full of recently restored and new houses. Most are in the charming apricot stone of course, although fewer today have stone louzes for roofing tile; most are tiled. No surprise as the stone weigh we are told two hundredweight per square foot - that's approaching a tonne per square metre! And it is busy here. Where we drove for miles in the Tarn and Averyron without seeing a car here there is traffic in most places and some of it a bit too fast for its own or our good frankly. The English are here in numbers of course but so far less visible than we expected (or was it feared?).

AND DOWN DALE A LA TOAD...

May 10 - This a fantastic part of France. It seems we keep saying it but this time it could be definitive. I always thought that this splendid country would contain a gem to my taste. I thought we had seen the likely area in Roussilon 20 years ago, then Corbieres, then again in parts of Provence more recently. And only the height (above sea level) seemed to keep the Tarn area out of the frame. But this is nearby in Aveyron country and it is wonderful. And at around 200 metres about 500 lower and thus warmer.
France is, of course, a country of rivers more than any other feature. Every region is marked by its rivers. Slow and lugubrious in the north but mighty like the Seine and the Somme. Broad and exciting in the middle like the winding Loire or the charming Charente. Then there is the Dordogne and to the east the Allier, haut Loire, Saone and the mighty Rhone. And here, below the Auverne and fed by the Causses of the Massif Centrale at 800 to 1500 metres there is the Lot, the Tarn, the Jonte, the Dourbie and the Aveyron. These are mostly tributary rivers in reality, the Tarn to the Aveyron and then the Lot which finally meets to the Garonne, soon to be the mighty estuary of the Gironde at Bordeaux. There are many many more, all wonderful. The Lot and the Tarn capture excitement and drama but their best mileage is too high, the winters too keen.
But the Aveyron is a little different. True it starts life at 800 metres near Severac le Chateau above Millau but is soon out of the dolerite chasms of its bigger brothers. A wide valley is formed and the height degrades until now we are at about 200 metres or so and it is a wide and playful river running in the most splendid woodland, with fat farmland and fat farmers all around. And the stone is Cotswold yellow limestone that builds houses to dream for. And making villages and towns that ache to be walked and talked all day long. With lovely chateaux and donjons and churches and abbeys. And ducks and geese and all they make with goats and ewes to give us chevre and brebi. And some of the bext boulangeries in France. And wine. Gaillac may not be the highest grade but there is plenty and it is fine. And there is plenty more paysan reds and even whites to ensure decent Vrac at less than a euro a litre and three or four the picher sur la terrasse!
Heaven must look a bit like these peachy villages against their humpty bridges over gurgling streams and rivers. Winding roads lead everywhere and every village disappears into a couer privee that you penetrate with courage, to be rewarded with a little square, a cool church, some tended plain trees for shade and often a little cafe, apparently closed until you sit for a breather at a table. “Bonjeur, monsieurdame...” and you are off.
For us the pain is duplicated by the fact that where French property, three deaces ago so cheap, but more recently 'discovered' has again fallen back heavily. A fully renovated village house with three bedrooms, the usual fittings and a small garden? Maybe 120,000 euros. Feeling big? Try an old mill cum maison de maitre with corner towers, six bays, dependonces, a hectare of ground and a pool “bord de la riviere et cinq minutes de la ville”. Price? 325,000 euros. Yep, that's right. And you are 30 minutes from the city of Albi and just over the hour from Toulouse with TGV and flights to all parts. Sod it.
But the caravan is a nice alternative and fully flexible. Poop, parp said Toad and off he roared....

(Some details amended later - sorry).

UP HILL....

May 8 – About time to mention the weather. We have been in France now for 49 days. Of course we should have been in Spain by now but that's another story. We have had one day of rain. No seriously, one day. Yesterday. And it only really rained twice, for about 30 minutes each time. There was a blow and we expected a storm. Back in March, with Graham and Jane with us we did have some dull days but that's it. Sunshine, all the rest, all the way. And now it is getting really hot. 28, 29 C and we have seen 33 on the car when left in full sun!

Of course we are sad that our plans had to be altered but what we read tells us that if we had made Barcelona, Zaragossa and north of Madrid we would have been very wet.

Anyway today we drove from Gaillac to Albi and then up to a campsite near Cordes sur Ciel. And it turned out there was a serious hill en route – two arrows! But that has only made us less sure of the diagnosis we had in Millau of our car's troubles. I restricted revs to 2,500 or so and we sailed up at over 40 mph. At one point, inattentive I guess, the revvs passed 3,000 with no problem. Hmmm. We shall see I suppose. But it does aggravate.

HOW MANY BRICKS DOES IT TAKE?

May 5 – Like yesterday today (Thursday) started very dull but improved enormously – the hottest yet of a very sunny and warm seven weeks so far. And Albi, after some appalling traffic management to deal with widespread roadworks was delightful as ever. We first came here about 13 years ago, renting a house via Brittany, just north of the town. It has grown massively but the ancient core is simply wonderful and what has changed has been by way of improvement. The cathedral is ridiculous of course, several million romanesque bricks built to 50 and 80 metres height in massive pillars. It is the largest brick built cathedral in the world. Actually I would doubt there was a bigger single edifice of any sort. It stands on the slight hill that delivers defensible cliffs along the Tarn, of which departement it is the chief town.

Once it was a neolithic site, then a Roman oppidium (fortified forward civic centre effectively), then a first millenium stronghold and finally a Norman period town, with a massive fortified cathedral and a similarly impregnable palace (now a museum). And that's when the building really got started. You look at about 200 years of brickwork and wonder where on earth all the bricks came from. Why isn't the entire area one huge brick field. And even then they hadn't finished – the palace, more churches, walls, granaries, mills – it is simply vast. When you see huge stone buildings you virtually fall down the quarries all around the territory. But the bricks needed clay, vast quantities of it. And kilns. Hundreds of them. So where are the brickworks? Nobody comments.

Inside this masterpiece of excess is equally incredible. It is painted from top to bottom, side to side and in amazing detail. Heaven and hell fill two vast drum pillars with a unifying host – unusually in stone - bridging the two. It is dreary on one level, dark and forbidding. But this was the priest's PowerPoint presentation to ensure his message hit home. Here is hell, there is purgatory, here is Heaven. And the amazing scenes all around you show what actions will take you to each. Read and weep sinners! And see the mighty and saved who have gone before. Hallelujah!

OFF THE TRACK AND LOCING IT....

May 4 - Well we have made the first run with the suspect turbo and it went OK. In fact pretty well. Keeping the revs down to 2,500 meant worrying less about a maximum pressure outage and as I knew anyway gave us decent performance. Mostly the run from Severac west to Rodez and then south west to Albi was downhill. Although one serious ascent was a shock. We were at about 300 metres and I thought the worst was behind us when suddenly we started a serious ascent which ended back at 850 metres! But the car managed OK, bottoming out at 3,000 revs and about 50 mph in fourth.

So here we are in Galliac about 15 kilometres west of Albi in a site we had to find via Google. As a result this is our first municipal in four years. We used to use them, all the time but that was in the season and back then. The rules are different now. Out of season the municipals are required to accept itinerant workers; otherwise known as travellers. To be fair they are tidy and not a lot of trouble but they are not tourists. So they come in two forms – working men who smoke a lot, drink a lot but are out all day. And families who are mostly below school age and on site all day without their men. It makes the site feel utilitarian. Cannot blame them but its just a fact. And anyway, whenever you leave those north-south rat runs the tourists are thin on the ground. So we are it, out of maybe 20 campers!

But hey, this is a wine town. Gaillac is pretty well known, raising merlot, sauvignon both cab and sauv, carignan, some syrah and a few local grapes of interesting if rural potential. They produce earthy reds, sharp white, some interesting doux and a bubble we have not tried. Prices are not bad – between 4.50 and 9.50 a bottle. The wine keeps about three years, although older wines are on sale – hmmm, not convinced. Janet is not keen – too aggressive, too brambly (the reds) and too sharp the whites. I am working at it but keep buying Frontons and Fitous! And Loire Sauv B!!!!

Gaillac is a super town but overwhelmed by the number of stunning medieval houses it has to deal with. Timber frames, jetties, loggias, terraces, balconies, towers abound but too much has been stripped of its stucco and the thin, earthenware bricks are spauling horribly. The cost of renovation is horrific and the town will change its character if everything is stuccoed – as it has to be to protect those soft red bricks! Some have been plastered while leaving he timbers visible – very pretty but it transfers the problem from brick to timber – special treatment will be needed if it is not to lose its strength and flexibility. Oh woe since every street around the old abbey is a joy and the walk down to the old port on the Tarn – source of much wealth back in the day – is wonderful.

Yesterday, in search of an alternative campsite, we went north to a town called Castelnau de Montmarel. It was probably the most delightful hilltop bastide we have ever seen and if we could we would buy a house there tomorrow. No, today. Oddly too the presence of Brits, Dutch and US residents was a bonus – unlike so many such towns it was alive. Busy and bustling and full of stuff. We loved it. Back again soon. The nearby site was no use but another, nearer to the stunning town of Cordes du Ciel is and we may transfer. Cordes awaits our visit. But it is Albi tomorrow.

SO HERE'S WHAT WE DO THEN....

April 29 - The issue comes down to the money really. We had a sort of budget for this trip. Our holiday fund means we can do a couple of grand each year. Our winterising plans add some £1000 to this. So we knew we could handle the £50 of fuel per transfer each week and the round about £80-100 a week for sites. But we really only expected a couple of hundred for incidentals like the car. Breakdown itself was covered by insurance. Even the robbery should be but we doubt we will get enough.

But major surgery en route is down to us. So just now we are facing a budget deficit of between £2,000 and maybe £4,000. Not something we can really handle. So go home is the solution.

We can save about £700 by not going to Spain and Portugal and by cutting the trip from 15 weeks to about 10. So we are planning a mountain free route out of the Massif Central. That means going west via Rodez and then south west to Albi. From there we follow the lower Tarn to Agen and then to its conjunction with the Garonne. Then stay with that river to Bordeaux from where France stretches flatter and smoother north. Up the N10 will save tolls and we can head to a ferry crossing about late May having had a fairly enjoyable trip – if all goes OK of course. Sadly of course this is mostly country we know very well which is exactly what our original route avoided!

We have been touring the area and re-visiting a few sites. Severac le Chateau was a place we wanted to see and we have certainly done that now. The castle is a impressive ruin of 800 years of privilege. The delightful medieval village is the exact opposite and absolutely lovely. We have seen the Millau viaduct from on and under and it is best seen from sideways. We have re-run bits of the Tarn and Dourbie and the Dourdou and also seen lots of new bits. The area has not changed too much in 18 years al;though there are differences. A bit more commercialisation, more bijou enterprises and houses and Moustejoul seems to have been gentrified – as expected. Millau is bigger, brasher and still rather super. The real roads are still amazing and the A75 autoroute and the viaduct add much – especially the chance to move about a bit more quickly!

So it has been a great couple of weeks all bar the stress. We shall pack up on Sunday and head off to Albi on Monday. If the car behaves OK and I can avoid using maximum turbo boost it will be a breeze, The only stress will be in me pussy footing a car I no longer trust and with 900 kilometres to go even to the ferry terminal. Heigh ho and off we go.

WELL, THAT'S IT THEN....

April 28 - Le turbo finito... Wells that's not what it actually says on the diagnostic report. It says the all the systems controlling the turbo are working fine and nothing has occurred to explain our problem. Except the problem. Which the diagnostic team replicated. They knew we towed a caravan and this was the first time we towed it at 3,000 feet on the A 75. So they replicated a maximum turbo pressure event. And it failed. So they did it again. And it failed. I went on line before taking the car to the garage – a VAG dealer in Millau. So I know roughly what happens. The turbo hits maximum pressure – at about 4,000 rpm in anything but sixth. And it fails to deliver. The engine management system goes loop and shuts down everything, dumping pressure tout suite. Result zilch turbo until you turn off and on again. When the aforementioned EMU runs a re-boot and resets the whole thing. Sadly it appears this is NOT on the event log which the EMU also runs.

Here is our problem – garage fees in France are 50% higher than in the UK and they want “en le environ de” (i.e. about) 1,500 euros. That's 1300 quid or more. The about really refers to whether they replace all the bits that MIGHT fail later or simply put them back. If money was not a problem and the car A – much loved and B – younger I';d say replace. Which probably puts it at 2,000 euros. Stay and do or go?

Here is the best solution as we see it. The car will never need to be run at maximum pressure if NOT towing. So we can drive home with ease and comfort. An d have the job done in the UK. We are deciding to leave the car on a back lot at the site we are on for four weeks. Drive home, have the job done, and drive back in late May to recover the caravan.

Do we feel cheated? You bet. Do we feel jinxed? You had better believe it. One oyster event worth four days. Oh yes. One robbery worth £2,500. What do you think? Two flat tyres worth 80 euroes and a set of brake pads worth 120 euroes. Don't you just love this? And now we have a blown turbo worth 1,500 and a need to turn for home two months early. Don't even ask.

BACK TO THE GORGES DU TARN

April 23 - They say you should never go back but like all rules of life it is proven in the breach. Our return to the Gorges of the Tarn river has been wonderful. It is some 17 years since we were here. Much has changed but muchg remains the same. The road here from Clermon Ferrand has indeed changed. When we last drove it was the RN9. It was my first taste of such a road with a caravan on the hook, albeit a light and easy Lynton of the 80s. It then ran from mountain top to valley bottom in a series of hard climbs and dives of two-lane follow my leader torture. Our carburettor aspirated Nissan Bluebird was 1.8 and automatic! It and we did OK.

Today it is the A75, four lanes of high level motorway that varies only between 800 metres and 1100 metres for the entire 125 or so kilometres. There are long ascents and descents but they are easy meat by olden standards, with slow vehicle lanes going up and down the worst inclines. You seel of France but about as much of the wonderful countryside.

And in our time it ended with an 800 metre descent into the valley of the Tarn, Aveyron and Jonte rivers at Millau. Followed by the 800 metres ascent up the rightly labelled Le Escalier pass into the region of Herault. Today it is the Millau Viaduct, French inspoired, English architected and geniusely engineered to carry the traffic from Causse top at about 800 metres to Hirault plateua at about the same. Gosh and wow are n ot enough.

When back in the day we heard they planned to cross the valley with a huge bridge we were a bit fhorrified. It is a superb place. How could it not be a blot on this landscape? Well it is not. It genius in concrete and steel. The piers that carry it are huge uop close but slender from a distance. And they are double with ba window gap between – it aids wind pressure problems but also diminishes their impact. And the bridge? A bold but slight blade of lights across the gap carried on gossamer wingers of suspension wires. It shimmers against the bright blue skies of the Midi. It is awesomely lovely.

And little else has changed. The Tarn has less water I think than before but the gorge is immense – even more than we remembered. The clifs are amazing, the cirques sensational and the stunning little houses, hamlets and villages that hang precariously below threatening rocks and above precipitous drops are charming beyond words. And some are on the wrtong bank because when built they did not go by horse and cart but by boat and a bridge was an unnecessary expense. Today some are even served by breeches buoys across the chasm.

You descend into and climb out of this 4-500 metres deep gorge by roads that spiral like spagehtti, forcing smart gear work out of lazy drivers. And rob the driver of his wits as he balances risk against pleasure to enjoy at least some of the view. Even down in the gorge this only just 100 years old clif-cut road snakes frighteningly along gthe noirthern bank, here in a tunnel overhung at 3.5 metres, there between blasted cliff borders with little but inches between passing mirrors. Along the weay are a myriad stopping places where eager fingers press shutter releases to pruduce trillions of pixels of identical pictures. But we all do it. Back in the day this was an expensive holiday – two weeks of 35 mm films was about 12x36 rolls at about £4 a roll; followed bgy dev and print at about £6 a shot. There was no change out of £125 and you had yet to mount or store them! Today I take that many in a few hours. I shall junk 60plus per cent and store about 10 per cent on a Picasso! Cost? Well zero really since the Canon cost no more today than the Ricoh that did the job back then. Except of clopurse some thieving git has my Canon and I was using a Lumix smaller than my fag packet in 1993 with a wider and longer lens and able to hold 1300 images at 8-12 meg!

No, nothing has changed. Oh, except the prices. Lunch back then would have cost about the same as a coffee today.

DROIT DE SIGNEUR AND OTHER PRIVILEGES

Severac Le Chateau is a town surrounding a huge castle turned palace on a stump of volcanic rock in the middle of a vast valley. The town survives, the castle, its fine rooms and gardens are a ruin. The revolution would be proud. Not that they actually levelled it – time and neglect did the most damage but if ever a chateau represented what La Revolution was about this could be it.

It starts life as a stronghold pf robber barons in the tenth century. Norsemen turned Normans settling down from a life of pillage to a life of villeiny as it were. They get to build a proper castle sometime around 1000 plus and it most definitely commands the countryside. But Normans come and Normans go and sometikme in the 13^th century a Severac comes to hold it. A man of adventure he gets to a Marechal de France but fails to ensure an inheritor; all balls but no balls it would seem. It passes to a scrag end of his family who screw it upo and it finds its way into the hand of clasical French noibility. Who tart it upo a bit. And then some. They builds an astonishing range of rooms ona three-storey basis, angled to catch the sun and centred ona towereed gateway. On end is a baronial hall, the rest – like a mighty ships on the rocks is rooms for family and friends. Mind you, it follow another French poattern we last saw at Chateau D,Onos in Corbieres. Essentially this 200 metres lonbg extravagance is just one room deep. It looks sensational but if built ina conventional form around an atrium or couryards would abe modest in reality. But we doubt the locals saw it that way.

But nobility come and nobility go – mostly in a tumbril around here – and the place falls into ruin sometime in the 18^th century. Ignmofred, plundered and reviled it does not even get historic monument status until 1960 or so. Today it stabilised, ruinous to view and ruinous to suppoirt. But somebody loves it and I have to say it is a cracking castle to visit. Amazing views, fin stone and no one to nag you off the rocks.

Down below is this lovely medieval; town, clutching the apron strings of the bastion above. Fortified, walled, gated – two excellent examples survive – it has escaped the Carcassonne effect but the resultant lack of any significant activity, especially outide the season is sad. Nobody wants the endless souvenir stalls of Carcassonne but a few potteries, artisan craft shops, cafes, epiceries and the like would make the place at least feel alive. But the architecture is wonderful, all towers, and gables, and jetties and pediments and crazy angles. Lovely.

OH NO, NOT AGAIN....

Tarn Gorges, April 19 - We are beginning to wonder if we offended a witch sometime. Janet was driving the interesting A75 that has replaced the torturous N9 from Clermont to Millau. She drives well which is good as motorway or not this is a killer road. 3,000 feet up, constantly climbing or diving and winding endlessly. And since it is a free A Road it is packed with traffic and a multitude of connections.

Which is why losing power in mid overtake is pretty unnerving. Effectively we were doing 70 passing a labouring old Hymer (yes old and Hymer do go together) when the turbo apparently cut out and Janet was coasting in fifth. She got us back onside and the Hymer was so slow we had passed it but it was soon our turn. A 1.9 Turbo Diesel sans turbo is a lot less than a 1.9 diesel. More like a 1 litre and this had 1,500 lbs of caravan on its back. At times we were down to second, 2000 revs and 30 mph. Which would be fine on an N road but this is an Autoroute. It reminded me of our first run this way 18 years ago in a 1.8 Nissan Bluebird auto with a 1200 lb Lynton van on the hook. The N 9 was a two way country road through the mountains. Lovely. But we were only 50ish and loved it!

I decided Janet had done her bit and we switched and laboured our way on, deciding to stop short of Millau and use the ACSI site at Severac le Chateau. Good decision as well after we later saw our choice in Millau – very Butlins!

So once again our day was spent hunting down a VAG dealer to check out the car. BUT, and this is odd, it started a dream on the Tuesday and was running fine. No hint of the problem. My theory of a failed catalytic converter looked unsound and a failed turbo it was not. Well, so far. Millau has a VAG dealership and they took a look. What no warning lights. So not the cat and not the turbo as such. And now running fine. Intermittent? Booked for Friday as I write for diagnostics and report - or fix if we are lucky.

Now comes the problem – do we trust the car or our luck any more? We are deep into France now which is OK since we have enough lingo and knowledge to cope and home is only one country away. But in two weeks we shall be crossing Spain midway down; then Portugal. Do we go on? Friday may decide the fate of this venture. Fix and forget and we go on. No significant finding and we have to be cautious. Major work and we are stuffed for cash anyway in the short term. It will be home and recoup while sorting the insurance claim. Oh yes that is still out there!

Janet took a glass of wine tonight. No surprise there – I took a feast!

AND SO TO THE AUVERNE...

The run from Chartres was easy and given the difficult and late start we were glad of it. Arrival here at Ebreuil was excellent. This site was chosen from its Google map view – excellent meadow beside the River Sioule, close to small town or some note. Easy access from the Autoroute. Well sort off. Janet was driving the last leg and the actual exit from the A road was fine but the descent into Ebruiel turned out to be five kilometres at 8% - that's one in 12 old money and with a van on the hook not all that funny, especially for a newbie. She did fine. And then found she had to negotiate a none too easy French town centre! Did it well and you have to learn sometime. I felt no guilt!

The site is sweet. Good pitches, level, sheltered, shade as needed. The river is lovely. The facilities? Well, left of centre. We have all the bits, just in a funny order and with large quantities of rather Warhol-ish painting around. Great jets with whizz-bang pilots and blonde floozies; superman; Clark's shoe-style crosstrack bucolic scenes. But it is fine. Owners are English – came here 25 years ago.

The river is a tributary of the Allier, which names the department here in the region of the Auverne. The Allier feeds the Loire. But even the Sioule is no small river. Ebruiel is a charming little town that has faded lately. It should do better really as the adjacent Autoroute connection is the only one fro 40 kilometres north and south! But it had a huge priory which is now crumbling and it needs an inspirational Maire to get it back on its feet. But for us it is a pleasing place to stroll and shop.

Today we drove west up the Sioule into the Gorge du Chouncy, a mini Tarn. Two castles, some pretty villages and we curved around to view a lake in a volcano plug. Just on the edge of the Puys and the Region Des Vulcanes, the Goir Tazenat is a 7 kilometres round circular lake in a crater. Rather good to look at and a lot more manageable in scale than the monster versions we saw north of Rome a few years ago. Nearby were some thermal baths but the lake evinced no maladorous factors although Olly turned his nose up and did not drink!

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Chartres has become a true test for us. Indeed, as the man said, the best of times; the worst of times. The place is wonderful, the cathedral amazing. The town that huddles around the mother church's apron strings is old, proud and charming. The shopping is terrific and the markets superb.

But the taint will remain. To be robbed on your first night and lose all cameras and spare clothes – about £2,500 in total we reckon - was bad enough. Three days seeking a car window aggravating. But finally we were ready to go and then what now seems like a jinx came back again. All set. Janet says a tyre looks soft. I look. It is. Flat!

I unpack the boot and extract the spare, a good tyre which was repaired a few weeks back and checked before we left. Flat! Expletives were not deleted. I had only a pump for topping up but another camper came to the rescue. We pumped up the flat and sped to a Midas tyre centre. A two inch cross head screw was to blame. And the flat spare? That was a weeping valve!

Two repairs would have been bad enough but with a wheel off I took the chance to check the brake pads. What do you think, I asked the man. 2000 kilometres he said. Enough to get you home. Not going that way, I said. So new pads it had to be. 125 euros later – and I reckon that was a decent price – we are able to leave.

We shall be back but I reckon it will be in a hotel in the centre ville – NOT in a van on THIS campsite.

THIEVES IN THE NIGHT

Chartres - April 4

All gone. All my toys bar one in a single aggravating night of felony by a bunch of... no, they are probably les miserables made even more so by the vicious actions of drug barons and bankers.

It went like this. I finally felt well enough to make the four hour journey from Mont St Michel to Chartres. It was not a great decision as it happens. An hour or so down the road the phone rang and it was the campsite to kindly tell us that the delayed package of pills for Janet had finally crawled the last few hundred metres to Courtils. Eight days for about 500 miles!

But we 'sped' on and arrived in good time at Chartres, finding the site easily. It was OK in a French kind of way, on the banks of the river which was however made inaccessible by a security fence of which more anon. The put up was faster ands better accomplished but I was knackered by the end and well aware I might have done better to stay put one more day. Oh boy was I right this time.

As ever, with the awning up and properly fitted out we felt complete. I left a few items in the car – quite safe of course – and we retired to bed. All slept well including our ever watchful and alert hound, Ollie. In the morning a neighbourly camper told us a window was open. It had been smashed in – silently by pressure with a jemmy – and all my cameras and lenses, two bags of spare clothing and some books were gone. Oh, and the SAS caravan wheel clamps which I had not fitted as the awning was up and the site roadway secure. It is heavy so I carry it in the side tool compartment in the rear of the car.

Three other campers we also done – none so throroughly however. Professionals, as they cut out quarter lights silently with a Stanley knife, broke my window silently and knew every compartment including the 'hidden' optional extras in my Skoda! They even took the special Canon camera battery car charger from the little hatch under the steering column!

The French police turned up promptly, did a reasonable job of scouting about, taking details and even called up a SOCO who photographed (nice bloody Nikon!) and even dusted for dabs – zilch; too humid as in morning dew. More blue action than we would get in the UK, I have to admit.

It was generally agreed the security fence by the river was inadequate. It was, I now see designed to be environmentally sensistive, green, gauzy and insubstantial. A bare six feet and mildly spiked – you can turn them down with your fingers! It was also revealed that thefts were not uncommon, as in three times year. Especially early in the season. The site opened on April 1; today is the 5^th!!!!

Walking the dog later I found a shielded stretch some distance from the main camp with two areas of the fence bent down about 18 inches, the spikes turned down and close to one an area of long grass freshly trodden and disturbed – late night sex or our stuff awaiting collection. Close by in the soft ground were two wide tyre tracks, uncannily like the balloon tyres fitted to quad bikes. Do I waste another day helping the police with their inquiries? What do you think!

It could have been worse but the aggravations are legion. Long calls to insurance companies. Janet spent two hours with the local police filling in forms. I found a VW dealer and arranged ordering a side window; it could be in tomorrow and will be fitted “sur votre command” - same day then, Monsieur!

I shall buy some sort of camera to tide us over – I cannot stand not having a proper viewfinder so the pirce will not be low; may as well make it a proper 'back up' like the sweet little Fuji I guess. But me? One camera and no extra lenses? No Gorilla tripod? I'll die.

If the window is done tomorrow morning we shall be able to start doing Chartres – until then the car is not secure of course. A rubbish bag and three yards of gaffer tape isn't gonna stop these (expletives deleted) people.

THE TROUBLE WITH OYSTERS...

Mont St Michel - April 4

Regrettably I am ill again. And the most likely culprit is oysters – again. It goes like this:

I adore oysters and for years in France I devoured them in large numbers. Although less confident of the English handling of this delicate jewel I did occasionally eat them in the UK. Then in 1993 I bought oysters for Christmas. Collected them fresh and alive on Christmas Eve and got them ready for Christmas dinner. Three of six adults ate them. Two of us best part of a dozen, one experimentally trying a couple for luck.

By midnight the three of us were very ill. By Boxing Morn it was touch and go that we called 999. We did not which I now think was regrettable. Mainly because it means I cannot honestly prove it was the oysters and the national and local suppliers therefore cannot be named.

The year went by and in 2003 we celebrated our 60^th birthdays by taking a house in Cornwall for both our daughters families – the same victims, of course as in 1993. We chose one of the best restaurants in the UK and were royally treated to a fabulous meal. Two chose oysters and one again had a dabble. Unbelievably the two main eaters were horribly ill again! And both had eaten oysters in France with no ill effect. The third was unwell but less so.

The years have rolled by and I have not sampled oysters in the UK again and even in France have avoided them. Until Thursday. In Cancale, home of vast numbers of highly respected oyster beds. Nine cruse number 3s did I enjoy. And all seemed well until 36 hours later when another night of horror began. The phrase both ends against the middle never had more resonance!

But here's the thing. It took too long to start for it to be bad or toxic oysters. I was not vomiting until I drank some water and then only briefly. And it has passed too quickly. Well, not quickly enough but you may know what I mean.

So now starts the hunt. Is it possible with such a specific and live comestible to attenuate your body to be intolerant? After all I have eaten oysters some 40-50 times but only the last three have made me ill. So, was it only that first batch that was 'off' or at least toxic from its water? And did the second, admittedly sever, event have more to do with intolerance than any real failing in the oysters? Either sway of course these were the last oysters I shall ever eat, which is deeply sad.

Now, what shall I google to establish this possibility?

FOUGERES

Still down with the gut trouble. Not very good but getting better. Fed up sitting around we travelled the 40k or so to the Town of Fougeres. It boasts and huge castle with the largest amount of medieval battlements in Europe. 13 towers for starters. It is very impressive, lots of old granite and much quite skilful restoration too.

But it is odd. Then town is one one clifftop, there are two more significant cliffs and in between, on a chunk of land virtually surrounded by a river turned moat is this huge castle. Within it are four mill wheels arranged in line; amazing. But the oddity is that archers on the bluffs around can easily shoot into the bailey. How was it defended? It was not open it being Sunday so finding out must wait another day or so.

The entire town is charming and mostly very old. The likes of Victor Hugo, Chateubriand and many others have sung its praises. I cannot disagree – castle, cliffs, town and parkland are all charming.

A nice town, a nice port and some very nice oysters....

AVRANCHES

This is one of those proper French towns. Not special, no cathedral, no chateu although a bit of castle. But it has the proper Hotel de Ville, a proper marche, some parks, a bit of history and a lot of pride. It honours General Patton who broke through to free it in June 1944. What was left of it rejoiced. Then they set about re-building it as it was before the war. So now it is too new, too right but also just right and charming.

It is girt by hypermarkerts as usual but somehow the centre seems well off, richly endowed with bakers and butchers and epiciers and all that. The local health situation may however be open to doubt as I have never seen quite so many pharmacies.

I should add that our visits to hypermarkets has reminded us that while we in the UK may have made some mistakes by allowing the growth of the supermarket to become ludicrously extensive we did at least restrict the process. Here, every hypermarket includes a street of other shops, all robbing the local town centre of its usual trade. Yet along these 'streets' there is just one of each trader - no free competition here. Oh no.

FRIENDS

We have our friends Graham and Jane here at the moment. They are on their way back to the UK after 8 months touring mostly Spain in a very fine motor home. We may yet see them again on our way across Spain - they are so brown and they cannot bear to stay more than a a few weeks in Britain! They are newly retired and lapping it up.

CANCARLE

This little fishing port is in the great bay of St Michel but across the border from Normandy into Brittany – just. It is charming and entirely overwhelmed by its huge oyster and mussel fishing industry. The harbour is open and at this time of year empty, but for a few of those strange oyster landing craft – all flat bag-bed with but a single place for the pilot. We wander the strand checking the prices of the innumerable and well patronised restaurants. I am sure they are all the same really, varying only slightly in price and ambition. Vast and unreasonable plateu de fruit de mere in some, more sensible and better priced versions in others.

We choose, we sit with a harbour view, we eat joyously of oysters (mois), mussels (two plats), crevette (one), a splendid breton omelette (one), a fine fish soup, a panache of fish (underdone to our taste), some excellent and cheap Muscadet (what else), some crème caramel and Breton flans and coffe. We started out thinking French prices had gone barmy but four people, three courses, ample wine, coffees and less than 80 euroes. Cannot be bad really.

THIS SITE

Camping Mont St Michel is a classic French site, with Normandy finishings. We are placed in little evocations of the Normandy bocage which so foxed the Americans for a while after D-Day. Small fields, with hedges and trees. Plenty of cover for the enemy they found. Rather less for us but a nice touch. It has been dull and a bit wet, starkly different from the Pas de Calais where we enjoyed such unseasonal warmth and sun.

The trees are beginning to bud and the birds are singing. Of course it is for us a bit early each morning – effectively we are two hours ahead of GMT and it can feel it. But the evenings are suddenly longer. If only the sun were on duty.

Half the site is the usual array of statics but in this case they are rather charming pretend clapboard units, with proper gtiled roofs and real windows. They look rather sweet here, where normally they are a mess. They can be rented for £235 euroes a week out of season. But bthey are still not a huge amount bigger than our carfavan and awning compined for which the charge is about 90 euroes a week. Ok we carry our own water and wste but that's wuite a margin.

Today (Friuday) we should have been driving to Chartres but a package of medicines for Janet are awaited. Kate kindly bought and sent them by air mail last Monday. We hoped they would be here yesterday; now it will be Monday at best. We shall head for Chartres tomorrow and drive back via Rennes - seen but not enjoyed so it will make the trip worthwhile.