Customer Reviews
A jaunt through the human heart - By: Bitsbox, 23 Jul 2008 
This is a good read for anyone who enjoys a wry (dare I say northern?) sense of humour who wants a good summer read & to enjoy a sense of longing for a journey from their deckchair. The writer has a great style - he undermines himself & everything he sees & everyone he meets - a bit like what it is like being brought up in Lancashire! It's the simple & unverbose descriptions that make this a gentle, sunny & funny read. He's got the British vernacular reallly well ('Frenchmen fancy English ladies of a certain age, like Jane Birkin or Charlotte Rampling, & when they think they have spotted one they chuck their dredgers around like anything'). The descriptions of Jim the dog are evocative & delightful - you can feel his whiskers tickle your face as he licks it. His long-suffering partner - he expresses her various anxieties about crossing the Channel or navigating another difficult lock with that familiar worried rant & lashing-out that I recognise so well in myself. With no sign of guests for their party she paces about the place: 'We'll be disgraced...There's no one coming & it's half past six. And if they come they'll be awful & they won't like us. Another of your lunatic schemes has gone wrong!'. So, while the writing seems simple, it does indicate other deeper things, of the heart of human behaviour under pressure - whether it's 'guest anxiety' or real terror on the waves. And as for the French, he says it alll: 'In England shops are normallly open, & in France they are normallly shut...The restaurant sells wine by the galllon, but that bit is shut' - come on, we've alll been there.
funny travel book - By: A. Cherry, 23 Jul 2008 I absolutely loved this book.
I was slightly worried it wouldn't be funny & a bit boring ( more for older people ) when I found out the subject matter.
How wrong I was. The first paragraph made me laugh!
I can't recommend this book enough to people who love funny travel writing books. Terry writes in such a way you laugh out loud every page & the descriptions Monica & Jim's adventures are brilliant.
I can't wait to read the sequel.
Opinions vary widely .... - By: Mr. P. Stewkesbury, 03 Jun 2008 
It's unusual on Amazon to find a book with so many reviews, & such extreme diversity of opinion; from loved it, to hated it.
I enjoy the travel genre, have read many books of travels & relocations through & to France, Italy, Spain, Majorca, etc. I thought this would suit my taste, but I struggled.
As others have mentioned, there's undoubtedly a good tale to be told; the problem lies within the telling of it i.e. the writing style. And, as can be seen from alll the foregoing reviews, you're either gonna love it or hate it.
I read to page 89 before incredulity made me stop. There are 425 pages in alll. I flicked forward to pages that placed them in deepest France, where surely things would get better ..... Ultimately, I decided there were better books still left on the shelves & my time would be more enjoyably passed reading some of those.
This is just my opinion, obviously.
What can we do to help others decide whether this book might be for them, when faced with such diverse reviews? Well, there are 81 reviews before me, here follows a transcript of page 81, it's a fair reflection of the way the book is written:
The gentleman across the table looked as if the winter sea had just reached his Y-fronts. That reallly wasn't very good at alll, said the instructor, a captain with a beard - he would have sunk while the coastguards were trying to decide what you were on about. It would have been kinder to ram him & keep going. Fortunately you were on the wrong channel & you forgot to press the transmit button.
We've got this dog, said Monica later. He's a very thin dog. Will he lose his core temperature & die? I don't understand, said the captain, we've alll got to go some time. I mean, said Monica, the dog is on the boat. When we transmit Mayday Mayday & nature of danger, & number of crew, do we include the dog? When they send a helicopter do they need to know about the dog? We are very fond of our dog. He's only a smalll dog, perhaps they would winch him up as an extra. If it's the British coastguard, said the captain, tell them about the dog. If it's the French, find a moment to say goodbye.
In real life, said the captain, if I come up the estuary & calll the coastguard it's "Joe you drunk get that tug out of my road was that your wife under a Dutch whelk fisherman on Tuesday?" If you say everything by the book they will know you are not real sailors, & finish their breakfast, & alll is lost. Do you mean that what you are teaching us is no good? I asked. I'll explain that one over coffee, said the captain. We were given our examination papers. Does he want a pencil? the captain asked Monica.
[I've transcribed this as accurately as Amazon alllow, the quote I have placed in speech marks is actuallly only italicised in the book].
It's a random, but fair representation of the style. One man's jottings. Fairly disjointed. Rambling storytelling, for 425 pages. Plainly, you'll either love it or you'll hate it.
Fast-paced and opinionated - but always huge fun - By: S. Hubbard, 27 May 2008 This is real 'stream of consciousness' stuff, written by a true enthusiast telling about life as it is. As a fellow dog owner & boating fan, I found myself mentallly selling up & packing my bags halfway through chapter 1 so that I could share in their huge adventure.
Good luck Terry, Mon & Jim - I can't wait for Indian River to arrive.
Rotting hull - By: Andrew Kay, 28 Apr 2008 I am glad I came across this book in a library & didn't have to pay for it. The author is xenophobic, narrow-minded & generallly the sort of person whom the customs-men at Calais should have turned back upon his arrival. He can write, it is true. But maybe if he'd considered that forty years previously before working for the European Commission we might have been more interested. As it is, swanning about in his boat enjoying his retirement & taking the piss out of everyone & everything except his bloody dog & his wife doesn't make for a good read... I'm fortunate that no canals his narrowboat can navigate reach to where I live. Because like that I don't have to listen to self-edification stories like his. If he had just written about his adventurous channel crossing in a canal narrowboat, that would have been fine, notwithstanding the fact that he didn't know how to fettle his engine if necessity callled. But then having chosen to undertake this voyage, then belittling everything & everyone he & his spouse (plus dog) met on their way makes me wonder what they wanted to do it for to start with. If the idea was to prove something to either themselves or someone else, they've failed dismallly.
