Narrow Dog To Carcassonne

Product Information

Like many Welshmen he is talkative and confiding, but ill at ease with practical matters and liable to linger in public houses. I found that the level of detail in the book discouraged me from finishing it but that is a matter of personal taste. This book tells how the author, his wife Monica and dog Jim took their narrow boat Phyllis May down the English canal system from Stone to the Thames, across the Channel, through the French, Belgium and then French again canal systems all the way to Carcassonne. I left the book for about two months and when I came back to it, I found it was much easier to read, like a language I'd gotten fluent at. Along for the journey would be their faithful whippet named Jim and their course would take them not only along the picturesque canals of Europe, but also on the River Thames and across the English Channel.

Despite developing a kind of mild dislike for the author who, I seem to think, used to be in advertising or PR or something similar, this was an interesting story. The style takes a little getting used to but once you're over that, it's a fantastic read and very funny. the Phyllis May was an airship passing through the clouds, forbidden to land, though her captain longed for the streams and woods below. Terry Darlington has a fine line in self-deprecatory humour, a characteristic of English humour we're told, except Terry delights in his deprecation extending to everyone else who characters his writing!To really appreciate the book, I think you have to be familiar with either boating, are the places mentioned. In 3 days at a conference overlooking the narrowboats on the Llangollen Canal I have nagged every one of my friends and other delegates to read it too.

If you are interested in canal/boating life as well as a bit of a voyage - and/or you are interested in th culture of France - I think this book is for you. We could bore ourselves to death, drink ourselves to death, or have a bit of an adventure…" It was absurd. Take one story about low flying fighter planes: the first description had them just 6 inches above the Rhone. I read this books for my book group out of 10 of us only 2 had finished it and normally we have all completed the book, clearly I was not the only one to who's enthusiasm ran out. I hoped “Narrow Dog to Carcassonne” would paint a picture of the experience from the eyes of a seasoned traveler.

You meet the French nobody meets – poets, captains, historians, drunks, bargees, men with guns, scholars, madmen – they all want to know the people on the painted boat and their narrow dog.