If you think you can avoid being raided by Andy and Sarah (Greygal) by shipping your narra out to Europe; forget it. Last night they caught up with us at 10.30 pm, just across the French border at Vireux-Wallender; bringing with them our new electric bike, G’s new Crocs, a gas fitting thingy that allows us to fill our UK gas bottles with LPG at a filling station (instead of changing bottles and fittings everytime we cross a border), Marmite, Ginger Beer, Pork Scratchings (for the boys), porridge and FRESH MILK – that cup of tea this morning was glorious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a thank you for their efforts, we woke them at 8.00 this morning (total disregard for the fact that they’d got up at 5.00 am the previous day – a previous engagement – and we hadn’t gone to bed until gone 2.00am. Their body clocks thought it was 7.00am so I doused them in coffee and Sarah and I set off for the Patisserie where she ordered croissants, pain au chocolate and baguettes before I could mutter bonjour Madame.

Sarah set off with MR down the beautiful River Meuse through the 3 teeniest locks we have encountered so far – so teeny that there was barely room for us and the (very worried) plastic in front (she now thinks we’ve invented the big ones). On leaving, the plastic engaged full throttle to ensure we didn’t share his next lock!

I’m only here by virtue of the fact that we have (dodgy) free WiFi with our moorings as we haven’t sorted out our comms in France after leaving Belgium.

So: we are alive and kicking and having a ball. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.