Keeping Afloat is a light-hearted tale of John Liley's exploits on the canals of France. John was working for a boating magazine when he was overcome with a dream of owning and operating a hotel-barge in France. Now, thirty years on, he tells of his often hilarious misadventures in the early days of setting up a business that would keep afloat. Characters such as The Whizzer, Mighty Min and Monsieur Bertrand would be unbelievable if they were not true. Barge enthusiasts and landlubbers ali...

We were aware of a dreamlike quality to our trip. There was something far-fetched about it, something out of this world.Austerity might be getting everyone else down, but Steve is waving his worries goodbye on another of his light-hearted trips around the picturesque English waterways.This time it’s a bit different, though. This time he’s not just cruising with his cat, Kit, but with his long-suffering wife, Em, who’s given up work and wants her share of easy living too. The...

'A splendid romp. Vive la France!'Peter Mayle, author of 'A Year in Provence' and many other bestsellers'Mike Buchanan is the best kind of opinionated, middle-aged, middle-class Englishman abroad: the funny kind.'Andy Heslop'If you have a sense of humour, this book will put a big smile on your face. I laughed out loud many times. A refreshing absence of political correctness.'The lovely Maureen PadleyPolitical correctness is a curse of the modern era. This book is not politically correct. ...

The second book in the best-selling Mill of the Flea series, continuing the often farcical and always entertaining adventures of the author and his wife as they attempt to make a new life in rural France. Totally unlike any other book in travel literature.Following on from Home & Dry in France, René & Me sees the author and his wife moving across the Channel to try and live off the land and their wits in an isolated corner of Normandy. They arrive at the ruined Mil...

In this hilarious collection of cautionary tales and anecdotes, George East discusses all the delights and drawbacks of finding, buying and restoring French property. HOME & DRY IN FRANCE follows the early adventures of George and Donella East as they make every mistake in the (not-then-written) book about how and how not to buy a second home across the Channel. Tellingly subtitled A YEAR IN PURGATORY, the book is much more than a listing of all the awful ...

In her previous books Chris tells of her move to the tiny Feudal Island of Sark, in the British Channel Isles with her husband Ken, to run their guest house and smallholding. They then journey out to New Zealand to explore and finally settle there. Over the years the marriage starts to falter and in the opening chapter of 'So You Returned to Sark' it comes to a dramatic head. Chris returns to Sark with 'the love of her life,' Peter, and begins a very different existence. She becomes involv...

How do you find the woman of your dreams when you're nearly forty, living in the middle of nowhere and spectacularly ungifted in the art of seduction?Three years into his solo adventure in rural France, Michael Wright has everything he ever wanted: a ramshackle house, several manly power tools, a cat, a grand piano and a vintage aircraft. Yet the lovelier his life becomes, the lonelier he feels. Three unfulfilled wishes return to haunt him: to grow a perfect potato, to fly...

The brilliantly entertaining true story of how one couple set out with a dream of moving to France - and got far more than they ever bargained for.HOME & DRY IN NORMANDY is the first of two books following the adventures of George and Donella East as they try to realise their dream of living the good life in rural France. After months of property-hunting, the couple arrive at The Mill of the Flea, a dilapidated and long-abandoned eighteenth-century water mill set i...

Buying a holiday home in France was something Penelope had wanted to do for years, but the experience doesn't go as smoothly as anticipated.Trouble starts when Penelope's boyfriend leaves her for the attractive French woman living next door. On top of the chaotic situation developing abroad, there are family and work issues at home to be dealt with. Penelope comes face to face with a pressing need to re-organise her life - including the distinct lack of romance.

Peace and tranquillity. For once nothing terrible is happening. After years of dodgy moorings, ankle-deep mud, exploding toilets and all the other normalities of live-aboard life, the Brownes now seem to have found the perfect spot in which to park Minerva, their aging narrowboat. Marie and family finally find the time to work on the outside of the boat and even take a holiday or two. It looks as though life has finally taken a turn toward 'normal'.Not a chance.From the bal...

France, the ever popular dream target. To live, to visit, long holidays, weekend breaks, France and especially the south eastern area with it's fantastic and varying countryside; everything from mountains to plains, huge rivers and the glorious Mediterranean sea. The pull is there. This book goes from one Scotsman's long time dream, encouraged by his teenage daughter, though the search to fulfillment encompassed in vivid descriptions of the wheres and the hows of wandering about this entic...

It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had seen all those TV programmes. The dream of living in France was only a ferry ride away.But months later, my life was a nightmare. I didn't fit in with either the expats or the French, my husband had taken refuge in Star Trek and I had adopted a crazy dog that ate anything he could find, including my slippers.Faced with loneliness and very homesick for my family in the UK, I began to write a journal of my life.This is a war...