JG n Fifi: How it began

Usually you'd joke about these things not really dream of it to be your reality, just as I did until I saw the streak of panic and seriousness on JG's face...... 'Where's the car Fi?'......
'Well i don't know, where you left it?' ....... No, not really an appropriate answer considering, so biting my tounge we traipsed up and down our street and the little ones adjacent only to end up in calling the police. Not really what one was expecting 3hours before our scheduled departure time.

Bad things turn to good things, no? Well, thanks to Dutch efficiency, or not, the little Clio was salvaged from the back-of-beyond of Rotterdam only with a brick in the back seat and glass creating a rather sparkely effect over its whole interior. All salvage thanks goes to,

one of these (oh yes!)

and one of these! (you're the best Ju!!)

Six pm, tired and quite fed-up, we departed Rotterdam and drove with a plastic window, fully loaded car hot tempers, but with a radio (!) all the way to a wonderful little village in Luxembourg. Our moods were revived despite arriving in the dark, as we navigated the windy roads and found the river. The floodlit castle and little village of Vianden nestled in the green, tree-lined valley welcomed us and our load delightfully.

Now, pre-Lotus, our good friend above had / has a rather battered old car, with a lot of character of course, but one couldn't help imagining that given a little bump she might not be treated to a complete repair job..... only now I realise why! We arrived to Marseille, home of Ju and his first car, in our Parisian plated Clio, which one couldn't help feel rather vunerable in driving through all the narrow, hilly streets. The place is absolutely rammed with cars! They are everywhere; and parked in every way, shape and form along the streets, in the stripes you usually avoid on a road, in the gaps you find between main roads, up the sides of buildings and mostly positioned bumper to bumper.... not a good parking city for Fi I tell you. Thank goodness for the Parisian driving technique after all!

Anyhow, over our ten days there we adjusted.

The first picture of our the first blog (Marseille) is what we also adjusted;

We adjusted her contents, her layout, small parts of her infrastructure and her cleanliness! Whilst living onboard we tried to cover every nook and cranny that we could, taking the bruises, scratches and blows to head that she retaliated with and stocking up with boat parts, food, saftey equipment, clothes, sexy shoes (but oh-so gripy!) and alllllll the rest.....