Author Archives: maryjane678

Welcome to the 16th blog of The Olivia Rose Diaries on July 30th 2020. We are still out on the road, in our campervan-come-tender-to Olivia, touring in the south western corner of France. We’ve never been people who like crowds. Long before this new Covid-world, we avoided the cities, the festival circuits, museums and crowdedContinue reading “The un-invited guest at the party”

Welcome to the 15th blog of The Olivia Rose Diaries. It feels like ages since my last blog in late June – how I have missed writing it and receiving all your replies in turn. It has occurred to me that I shouldn’t be calling this The Olivia Rose Diaries whilst we are taking aContinue reading “On the road again”

Welcome to the 14th blog of The Olivia Rose Diaries on June 27th 2020 I think you only begin to understand a country when you stop being a holiday-maker and start living as the local people do. Ordering packages, in our case two solar panels, a charger unit and a replacement battery for my laptop,Continue reading “Not the summer we expected…..”

Welcome to Blog number 13 of the Olivia Rose Diaries on June 14th 2020. On Sunday 7th June 2020, after eighty-seven days trapped in the marina at Basse-Ham on the Moselle in northern France because of the Coronavirus, we finally slipped the lines and made our escape. We waved goodbye to our new French friends,Continue reading “Thwarted by weed”

Welcome to the 12th blog in the Olivia Rose Diaries. We’re still in Basse Ham! We had hoped to leave mid-week but the weather turned against us, with a series of thunderstorms, torrential rain and very strong winds. We’re under no pressure to leave, and had no desire to battle our way through that sortContinue reading “Almost – but not quite – on the water”

Thursday 28th May was another of those BIG DAYS, the day when the French government were due to release details of the next stage of de-confinement. It hardly seems possible that the last of these ‘big days’ was just under three weeks ago. Time flies and we so quickly forget things. The announcement wasn’t dueContinue reading “Freedom beckons – just a few more days to go.”

Welcome to blog number ten in The Olivia Rose Diaries on May 22nd 2020. In our modern world there are few questions now to which we cannot obtain an answer. It may not be an unbiased answer, it may not even be true. With such an overload of information at our fingertips it is becomingContinue reading “So much information, so many different opinions”

Have you ever noticed how the weather takes perverse pleasure in thwarting the best laid plans of we puny humans? Monday 11th May was supposed to be a BIG day for us. The French lock-down was easing, and we had plans. We felt a bit like a pair of kids who had been let looseContinue reading “Coming out of lock-down”

Welcome to blog number eight in The Olivia Rose Diaries on May 8th 2020. I confess I sat down to write this week’s blog and, for the first time, found myself running short of ideas. In a bid for inspiration I decided to go out for a walk with the camera and see if IContinue reading “Last week of lock-down”

Hello and welcome to the 7th blog of The Olivia Rose Diaries on May 1st 2020. I was woken this morning by the rain dripping on to my pillow, missing my forehead by just a few centimetres. The leaks in our rear hatches have been getting progressively worse and there is a mammoth DIY jobContinue reading “Looking forward, looking back”