I'm sure that last time I said I wouldn't do that again!

Firstly, apologies for not having filed an update for the last two weeks.

Now that that's out of the way, lets get you up to date with what we've been up to......and there's lots to report.

We left off last time with us having just left Italy and having made our way back to France via the Cote D'Azur. It certainly felt good to be back in France and the little spot that we had booked in a town called Vence in the the hills above Nice proved to be everything the internet site had promised, including expensive! After our very "lived in" experience in Lucca, the newly decorated suite that was our home for four days was most welcome even if we didn't make full use of the numerous gadgets that it came decked out with, including a bath that emptied itself and then proceeded to dry itself (sounding a bit like a nuclear explosion in the process).

We all found this SE corner of France to be a little too "crowded" (and too expensive) for our liking with both tourists and locals a plenty. We did however visit a really quaint little town called St Paul de Vence which was really picture perfect and littered with fantastic art galleries - if only the prices hadn't been St Tropez style - Marion especially liked the bronze of a man at Euro 165 000....I cant think why when she gets me for nothing! Vence itself was also a really pretty town with all the french attributes including a superb little shop selling french home goodies some of which, needless to say, will be making the trip back to Brussels with us.

We had always planned to use Vence as a base to explore the Cote D'Azur and the Var Region as a potential location for our dream holiday home (once we win the lottery!). We managed to see a fair bit of the countryside whilst we were there heading off into the interior one day. The area is very wooded and this, together with the fact that it is relatively densely populated, meant that we never really felt at ease whilst we were there. So all in all, we have decided that it just doesn't live up to the beauty of Provence despite being so close to the coast.

At the end of the four days, we packed up the car (again!), and headed SW for Provence and Bonnieux where we would spend the next five days with the Thompsons at their magnificent home looking out over the vineyards of the Luberon Valley with Bonnieux on the one side and Lacoste on the other. The setting is truly spectacular surrounded by vineyards, lavender fields and cherry tree orchards and still remains our favourite spot so far.

We'd decided that, given the boys fascination with all things to do with the sea, we'd make a small detour on our way to Bonnieux to MarineLand in Nice to see its killer whales and dolphins and splash around at AquaLand next door. One small problem however needed to be overcome - the fact that no pets are allowed at Marine Land. Marion came up with the brilliantly inspired solution of finding a dog parlour nearby at which we could leave Bert for a few hours to have his hair done while we were doing our thing at MarineLand. Problem solved........we thought!

After having spent a few very pleasant hours at MarineLand we headed back to the parlour to collect Bert only to find that all had not gone that well whilst we were away and that Bert had been attacked by a large dog whilst doing a wee outside - that's what the parlour owner told us anyway - and that he now sported a rather nasty looking puncture wound on his shoulder and looked very sorry for himself.

Well, to cut a long story short, 36 hours later Bert was under general anesthetic at a vet practice in the Luberon having an abcess under the bite wound cleaned up, a drain inserted across his back and a compression bandage fitted around his chest area as it transpired that the skin and muscle on his back had been torn apart and some major damage caused by the offending dog.

Despite my best efforts to convince Marion that Bert would come through this all she was not convinced and had visions of waking up one morning to find that he had died during the night. In fact she was awake the entire night listening for his breathing! I'm glad to report however that Bert has lived up to his reputation of being a tough old guy and has made it through. His bandages were removed on Saturday by a vet in Carcassonne who gave him a clean bill of health and declared that the wound et al looked "tres joli"! Best of all, Bert is back to himself, eating like we've never seen him eat before and doing everything else that dogs do from all the right places. He does however look a little odd with half his hair shaved off around his chest - perhaps he'll start a new fashion amongst daschies!

Bert's unfortunate experience did put a bit of a damper on our stay in Bonnieux and our planned trips to Lourmarin and Aix en Provence were cancelled as obviously Bert couldn't travel whilst he was in the state he was and we didn't feel it was fair on him or the Thompsons to leave him at the house unattended. Nonetheless, we all thoroughly enjoyed our time in Bonnieux and felt very priviledged to share such a beautiful place with our wonderful hosts Craig, Lisa, Alayna and Andrew. Sean and Kyle in particular totally disowned their parents for almost the entire duration of our stay deciding that Andrew and Alayna were far more interesting company than us oldies. To be fair to them, they hadn't had any contact with other kids for the previous six weeks so its not suprising that they overindulged in the company. We did manage to have a lunch at our favourite auberge in France called L'Auberge de L'Aiguebrun between Bonnieux and Lourmarin - under the old cedar tree in the garden....our fourth visit to this wonderful spot inspired by Peter Mayle.

And talking about overindulging, the Thompsons wine cellar and liquor cabinet will take a while to recover from our visit as for some reason - and those of you that know us well will know that we are not big drinkers - we seemed to get through an inordinate amount of wine whilst we were there. On the first night and after everyone else had gone to bed, Craig and I managed to polish off half a bottle of his finest Armagnac and I admit to waking up the next morning still feeling drunk - I can't recall when that last happened........all due to Craig's influence I am certain, a view with which he does not concur. Exactly who was pouring has not yet been determined (It was Craig)!

Giving us all more to talk about, Neill outdid himself arranging dinner one night with what he thought was a tarte-de-pomme (apple tart) for dessert which turned out to be a tarte de pomme-de-terre (potatoes) much to the amusement of all concerned. Craig also took great pleasure in highlighting certain features of Marion's South African accent particularly her pronunciation of yes which apparently comes across as "Nyeeeees" to the unattuned ear!

With Bert on the road to recovery we decided to continue with our journey as planned and packed up the car (again!) on Monday morning to head off for Port Cassafieres in the Languedoc where we had arranged to collect the boat that would be our home for the next seven nights on the Canal du Midi. We stopped off at Avignon on the way to do some provisioning and buy a pram for Bert - yes, a pram for Bert - and rolled into Port in the early evening to be told that the route that we had opted for on the Canal was a very arduous one given the distance, the number of locks and the fact that there were effectively only two crew members on board......and that they thought we better allow for an additional day (at no charge!) if we were to have a reasonable chance of completing the journey on time.

The boat we had hired looked quite impressive lined up on the dock and certainly ten times better than the one that Marion and I had hired on our previous boating trip on the Lot River some 8 years earlier (I'm sure I'd vowed never to go boating again after that trip) and the boys seemed visibly excited at the the prospect of what lay ahead....their first quasi camping trip ever!

The boat however proved to be really hard work for Marion and I as we fought what almost felt like a gale force headwind for four days straight. This, together with the manual labour required to get through the numerous locks and the stench of the manual toilets (that Marion described as the worst kind of boys boarding school toilet smell - I'm not sure when she was last in a boys boarding school toilet but we won't go there) eventually paid its toll and with Marion and Sean both getting colds with sore throats, headaches and all the rest we decided to abandon ship in Carcassonne two days early. The boat company advised that they would have to charge us E500 as a penalty for doing this but for some reason decided to let us off when they came to collect the boat on the Sunday....I think the guy took a fancy to Marion and decided to let us off! So some good luck to round off a week that to be honest we could have probably done without even though Sean and Kyle enjoyed the experience.

The Canal Du Midi runs through some very lovely parts of France and is most picteresque with its tree lined banks and picture perfect vineyards. Having said this, the towns and villages that we passedthrough were, other than Carcassonne, really very disappointing with only Le Somail managing to conjur up any kind of positive reaction. As for the rest............

We spent two nights at Carcassonne and visited the old "Cite" on Saturday spending the whole day walking around this magical medieval town, tourists and all. From a distance, Carcossonne is probably the best example of a walled medieval city that any of us had ever seen. We braved the mid afternoon sun to attend a medieval jousting tournament that happened to be taking place that afternoon and of course the boys were totally enthralled. Kyle had set his heart on buying a Kings outfit that he'd seen during the course of our ramblings and insisted that he wear it, crown and all to the tournament much to the amusement of many of the spectators.....just imagine it, Kyle in kings outfit and Bert being pushed around in a pram - what a sight! We've now been to medieval tournaments in Spain, UK, Belgium and France so are becoming experts on the subject.

With some unplanned time on our hands before arriving at our next stop we decided to take Kyle to the Dinosaur Museum in Esperaza which to all of our suprise turned out to be great with some excellent displays and a fantastic dinosaur shop filled out with dinoasaur stuff galore including a fluffy Triceratops that now sleeps with Kyle and has been named Donnie. We stumbled across a traditional french market in the town after our visit and were intruiged to see all the goings on of what was very clearly a hippy community of note.

We are now ensconsed at Hans and Rene Wackwitz' wonderful home in the Tarn between Toulouse and Albi after having arrived here a day earlier than originally planned (and two days earlier than per our revised plan as a result of the enforced extra day on the boat that then never materialised - I am sure Hans thinks we are a bit odd). The weather here has been wet and cool since we arrived which is a pleasant respite from the heat of the last few weeks particularly the 36 degrees on Saturday.

The Tarn seems to be a wonderful area and there appear to be loads of interesting places to visit and things to do so I am sure we are going to enjoy every minute here. After being cramped up on the boat for five days and nights it is a real treat to have all the space that we do here and we feel very privileged to be able to share in the pleasures of this lovely spot.

Next Tuesday the real adventure begins when we pick up the motorhome that we'll be living in for the next three and half weeks. We are a little apprehensive as to how its going to all work out as our aptitude for roughing it is clearly not finely tuned....as the boat experience will attest! Our initial plan was to cover off the 180 degrees between Bordeaux and Normandy but I think we are now leaning towards rather doing more of less and focussing our efforts in the Dordogne and perhaps parts of Brittany.

And then its back to Brussels in the first week of August.....and to be honest, we are all looking forward to being home and to getting our lives back to normal....whatever that might be given the uncertainty in our lives right now.

That's all for this installement. we'll try and get the next one in on time......until then - Sante!