Top Secret

There is a scene in the 80s spoof movie Top Secret where Val Kilmer is busy painting the scene from a moving train. We later see the result of his work: a blur of green.

I was reminded of this as we made our regular short and longer drives around the Brittany countryside. We covered 1500 miles in just over a fortnight and the number of times that the trees yielded all their navigational secrets to me in our moving car were vastly outnumbered by sights of leaves and branches blurring into one. Sometimes the collective sight of trees leaning to the east from the wind, or the rare silhouette detectable through summer foliage gave an excellent snapshot. All too often however the green of summer made things trickier.

I reminded myself of the bleeding obvious one one occasion as I allowed my curiosity about a tree that appeared to lean in two directions simultaneously to distract me from the road. It was easier for this to happen in rural south Brittany as the number of cars was so few, but no less dangerous for it. I resolved, once again, to save scrutiny of the detail until I was a passenger or better still parked. I think the law forbidding use of holding mobile phones while driving is probably a good one, but it does open a can of worms. Should the holding of sandwiches also be banned and what about looking at trees? If we have learned anything about our politicians over the last years it is surely that we must not give them ideas about new ways to restrict our lives. So best keep this blog strictly hush, hush.

Nature and Vomit

Our summer holiday was at last beginning and all the joys and trepidations of a family outing with small children concentrated themselves into the lower section of the fast ferry from Poole to St Malo in Brittany.

Rather unoriginally, I have always viewed seasickness as a mixture of the mental and the physical. I have seen war veterans reduced to blubbering wrecks and watched young children play snap through a howler. Oh the mysteries of the inner ear and the mind. Although I have been very queasy hundreds of times during travel, I am rarely sick. This is not always a good thing and has been much to my regret on occasion, as the old saying goes,

'There are two types of seasickness, the type where you are afraid you are going to die and then the type where you are worried you are not.'

At least getting it all out gives you a few moments relief from the torment.

The fast catamaran is more of a challenge in this area than the slower ferry, but the weather was being kind. There were inevitably still those who suffered a little. On seeing a middle-aged woman leaning wearily against a wall near the ladies I wondered if I might be able to help. I considered explaining to her about the fascinating relationship between wind and water. The subtle interplay of ripples, waves and swell. I decided against it and instead ordered an enormous sausage, yorkshire pudding and gravy combination from the canteen.

Good Day Out for the Missus

HRH the Duke of Edinburgh was kind enough to take time out to present me with a Royal Institute of Navigation Award this afternoon.

At the reception afterwards he spent a little time chatting with me and a lot longer in deep conversation with Mrs G. He was charming, funny and 'sparkly' apparently, whatever that means.