July 2018

NK told me, out of the blue, he’d bought a share in a canal boat in France.  “You’ve done WHAT??!”, I shouted. “How much?” “About $5000”, N said. “Let’s go to France with the kids!”  

For a long time, we’d had a vague plan to go overseas for an extended period, (probably since we went to South America for five months, followed by working in Penzance, England, in 1996 (pre-kids) ).  Our original idea was to go for a year – maybe doing aid work somewhere, but, three kids, a farm and a business later, this slowly morphed down to going for two months.

Anyway, back to the present, and the fact that NK had just bought a share in a bl**dy canal boat.  I started to think… Accommodation in Europe. Five people. Two months. About $17 per person per day. Aha!  What a brilliant plan!!