The Olivia Rose Diaries

Welcome to The Olivia Rose Diaries. Olivia Rose is our boat, although in truth she is much more than just a boat. She is our home for the summer months, our friend and our travelling companion. My name is Mary-Jane, Michael is my husband and in this blog I share our experiences as we explore the canals and rivers of Europe. We sold our house and all our possessions and embarked upon this travelling life in 2017, but the blog first begins in 2020 when we suddenly found ourselves under lock-down as the pandemic swept across the world. We spent months in complete isolation in a marina in the north west of France and the blog was my way of dealing with the situation. Happily, things have moved on since then.

When we are not on the boat we live in Le Shack , a wooden cabin in a field in the south west of France. It’s a tiny home, one room, and we live off-grid.

And whenever the urge to travel strikes again we get on our bikes, or take the train and spend a few weeks house-sitting.

I post a blog most weeks when we are travelling, perhaps a little less regularly when we are at Le Shack or when life is quiet. I am an author and have written a series of travel memoirs so if you want to know more about our lives you can find my books on Amazon. ‘Just Passing Through’ and ‘The Constant Traveller’ are the first two books of a trilogy about our life on the water, hopefully the third book will be out in 2026. ‘A Simple Life’ shares the challenges of living off-grid and settling into a foreign country and has been an Amazon best-seller. ‘The Turning of the Seasons’ covers our time of living on a small-holding in Wales and explains why we left it all behind to live on a boat.

My latest book, ‘The Language of the Badger’, is a different genre entirely, a nature book that celebrates the amazing creatures on our doorstep. And lastly, I have written a handbook on ‘How to be a house-sitter.’

Whether it be through reading the books or following the blog, welcome aboard! We hope you enjoy our adventures as much as we do.

Mary-Jane Houlton