Life is Rose

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We had forgotten how delightful all the different types of Rose wines are in France, we have invested heavily in stocks of Rose, but it seems like most of our investments in wine over the years it isn’t paying off as they seem to lose their value very quickly, however we are doing wonders for the glass recycling industry.Considering the current name of the boat(lo Rose, we are still waiting for the new registration) it seems apt that we are enjoying them so much.( nothing more than 3 euros a bottle yet)

We have had a 3 day fete in Briennon, not sure what it was all about but our sleepy little village had thousands of people , great live music from various types of bands, running races, cycling races, fishing competitions, a menage de jambon ( thought it was something to do with kinky sex but it turned out to be a version of pig on a spit) and to top it off a fantatstic firework display, we took our camera to the fireworks and forgot it has a setting just for fireworks!

Over our life time we have bought 7 new cars and countless second hand ones, not once can I say I enjoyed the experience, except maybe our second MGB, however buying a three year old Renault van from the dealer was an absolute delight, the staff were just delightful when originally buying, not one of us understood each other but we went away confident that what we had signed for was going to be exactly what we wanted. (Amazing what Google can translate).

We went back a week later to pick up the car which we had been assured was going to be fully serviced, guaranteed for 6 months, etc etc. We were met by a lovely lady who spoke English and showed us to a showroom with what looked like a new utilitaire in it, not ours we said , oh yes she said, it had been full detailed and was like a new car. We were then introduced to our representative who was to be our contact as long as we had the van! He explained in great detail which we understood not a word of what had been done to the van, new tyres, not four but 5, a full service, and so on. Then he took us to the fuel pump and filled the van up with diesel. We really enjoyed buying this van. After a week we took it back as one of the new tyres had a slow puncture, no charge, have a small bottle of champagne while we fix it for you. Wow!!!

Got round to the diesel heater this week, dirty job but think with a bit of TLC it will be ok. The engine lift pump was leaking so we decided to replace it rather than fix it, we will start on the rest of the mechanical next week, the engine runs very sweetly but smokes a lot, hope it is just injectors , but it is 34 years old! Not sure if diesel engines on boats are like pussy cats, every year equals seven.

Got around to exploring the bilges, yuk wondered what the smell was but they are sparkling now.

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