Food

Durban Curry Wars, January 2020

Sampling an authentic local curry is a must on the itinerary of any first-time visitor to Durban. With our Californian friends Ellie and Steve due to arrive in a couple of weeks, it behoved us to suss out the best place to take them.

First up, with daughter Wendy as the third member of the judging panel, we drove 20 minutes north from Umhlanga, Durban to the Sea Belle at Desainagar Beach, Tongaat, traditionally an Indian area. Mostly, the place came to mind because my sister Dale – also due to join us soon from London – had mentioned an ardent desire for its famous prawn curry.

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Five Days in Mauritius, 16-21 October

Rhotacism: can you say your r’s properly?; Yo ho ho – get thee to a rummery, go;  The Residence Mauritius

Chamerel Rhumerie, an excellent day out

A rhumerie is of course a place where rum is made. And the reason I wanted to start this post with Chamerel Rhumerie is that it was probably the highlight of our visit to the Indian Ocean island state of Mauritius.

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Arles Interlude, 4-7 October

Romantic Roy retrospective; Le Café La Nuit; Roy does 10,000 Roman steps; the Camargue – white horses, black bulls, grey salt and brass bands

Arles street, October 2019

Retrospective

Way back in the mid-nineties, long before the digital era, Roy and I spent a week in Provence. We flew to Nice, overnighted there in a room above a betting shop, then drove our hired car to Arles.

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Sister Summer Trilogy: Shoreham, Herne Bay and Saint-Geniès

Sometimes, we leave Karanja in her home port of Moissac and go off for a while. From what we got up to in August, here’s a trio of sister-centric outings, in the UK and in France.

While visiting my sister Dale and her family in Kent, England, she and I did a couple of day trips – first to Shoreham village and The Mount Vineyard, and then to Herne Bay. Then Roy and I went back to the Dordogne to meet up with his younger sisters Lyndsay and Cheryll.

#1 Shoreham (Kent) 

You have to specify Shoreham (Kent) because there’s another one – Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex.

River Darent, Shoreham village

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Canal de Montech to Montauban and back, 13-19 July

I’d been itching to cruise the Canal de Montech, and it was great! This pretty waterway runs from Montech to the gracious city of Montauban, linking the Canal de Garonne with the Tarn River. It’s just 11km long and manages to squeeze 11 locks into that distance.

 

This side of the bridge is the Canal de Garonne – t’other, the Canal de Montech

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Castelnaudary Part Four: Side Trip to Narbonne, 6 July

Located on the Med, pretty Narbonne city is about an hour’s drive from Castelnaudary – and we’d never been there. So we filled up with petrol and headed east in our little Renault Twingo in search of  some different scenery and perhaps a sea breeze.

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Castelnaudary Part Two: Port Stories, 3-7 July

Pizza, fisticuffs and the drunken sailor; Bill, Winnie and Gretige Henriette; antiques and anchovies; back to Chez David

 Castelnaudary – or simply “Castel” to locals or wannabe-locals – is one of the Canal du Midi’s prettiest ports.  We had a great first visit in 2017; click here to read all about that.

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Castelnaudary Part One – Getting there from Toulouse, 30 June to 3 July

Port Saint-Sauveur vanishing bike act; champagne at Castanet; Bo Peep and her boathook; my many and multifarious roles; lunch hour rules; important-little-towel philosophy; sympathetic éclusier at Sanglier; Le Diné at Port-Lauragais; the insightful M. Riches from La Rochelle

In the wee hours of our last day in Port Saint-Sauveur, Toulouse, neighbour Hans (Comtesse) had a bike nicked from our shared pontoon. In full view of the surveillance camera, someone had come through the gate – must have had a key – and carried the thing away, lock and all.

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Everything Toulouse! – 24-29 June

Welcome to the Canal du Midi; high drama in Bayage lock; Victor Hugo market; Toulouse dry docks; IKEA is cool; double martyrdom at Saint-Sernin; cultural cuisine at L’Ouverture

Having waved off daughter Wendy, who was returning to her job in Marseilles, we set off from Grisolles. Lock Emballens was followed by Castelnau, l’Hers – and it was at L’Hers that Roy resolved to push on to Toulouse, rather than moor somewhere overnight. (L’His decision, not L’Hers.)

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