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...

'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 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...

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...

One year and one arduous home-renovation into their marriage, Ken and Bing head to the French countryside to celebrate their long-delayed honeymoon, swearing they're getting out of the home-fixing business for good. When they fall in love with the village of La Montagne Noire, they find themselves buying a fixer-upper and starting all over again-but this time, in French!McAdams recounts their mishaps and misadventures with humor, capturing the essence of French village life, the awk...

Sam and Bud were ordinary first-time homebuyers in their early thirties. Their intention, in moving to France, was to create a simple life in a place where they could spend time with their children. The home they actually bought was a 17th century chateau in the Loire valley with over thirty rooms.Chateau Du Bonchamps had been the seat of noble families as far back as 1507. With only modest savings, Sam and Bud launched the exciting project of restoring this extraordinary building ...

How often have you eaten a mushroom that you picked yourself that morning? Or sat on a boat opening and eating oysters as you lift them from the sea? Or partaken of a seven course feast of game to celebrate the success of the chasse?When Patricia Atkinson - bestselling author of The Ripening Sun - first moved to France, her intention was simply to establish a vineyard. Over the years, however, she found herself becoming integrated into a way of life that, had she ...

"Oh, you live on a boat? That must be really cold in the winter. . ." Or, "Oh, you live on a boat? It must be great being so close to nature . . ." Or, "Oh, you live on a boat? It must be fantastic to be able to go wherever you like, whenever you like . . ."Narrow Escape sets out to dispel these commonly held public myths.From how to avoid assassination by ninja stealth ducklings, through definitive proof that kittens are aliens and the best way to sleep at forty-five degre...

In this collection of articles, the author paints vignettes and describes happenings from the vantage point of an American observer in what he has dubbed the Golden Triangle in France. The focus is on a fascinating group of persons and personal experiences in a corner of the beautiful Dordogne valley in the northern edge of the Lot that is still relatively unspoiled, and filled with an astounding number of significant places. The entire region throbs with the material reminders of prehisto...

Keith’s wife Gail is looking forward to travelling the world and staying in comfortable hotels when Keith takes early retirement from his high-pressure job. But he has a shock in store for her. He unexpectedly decides to buy a huge American Winnebago-type motorhome (RV), tow a car behind ‘so they can bugger off for months on end around Europe’. Their only experience a brief episode 30 years earlier, when their VW pop-top blew up on a remote mountain road. Gail reveals her fear that anythin...

Chris tells of her years as a district nurse, first in London in the early sixties and then New Zealand in the late seventies. She tells of the rough living conditions in London, where we meet people like the solo mother dying of cancer and longing to give her children a good Christmas and the 90 year old blind lady who refuses a proposal of marriage. In New Zealand she has a large area, is on 24hour call as the only nurse and where most of the roads are not tar-seal. We meet the disfuncti...

French Impressions: The Loire Valley "The title is very apt. Compared with other travel books, reading George's work is like coming across the brightness and brio of an Impressionist painting in a museum full of sombre art..." West Town News   Product Description French Impressions: The Loire Valley is the latest in a series of distinctive travel books by George East. George is the a...