Terry Darlington

Jim, the whippet, does not like boating, but his intrepid, somewhat elderly owners do. This time, the threesome takes their British narrowboat (built for navigating seven foot British canals) to the Intercoastal Waterway along the southern East Coast of the U.S. Much wry and amusing commentary and many near disasters ensue. The author's ton and dry, sarcastic wit make this book read-out-loud funny. His observations of the U.S. occasionally made me wince, but were quite recognizable, and show more Darlington's overall delight in the scene and characters and his self-deprecating humor kept it amusing rather than offensive. show less

Ideal holiday reading, this is the slightly oddly (but lyrically) written account of a retired English couple taking their narrowboat and whippet from the Midlands to Carcassonne, via the Channel and all sorts of other rather alarming adventures. The style might be odd but the subject matter is engaging, especially if you know boats a little, and read-out-loud funny in many places. Pleasingly, there is a flamingo-viewing scene in Palavas-les-Flots, somewhere we have visited ourselves.

I had forgotten that style of his from the "Carcassonne" one, but it is unmistakable from the beginning. Travel writing at its best, highly selective and often a bit on the ficticious side (which is fine, mind you!), Darlington presenting himself as an absolute failure at anything except drinking a couple of pints. With all this, nice insights into US customs and mentality (from an English point of view). And I do like his way of constructing sentences that are more like enumerations - or show more climaxes - and are quite simple indeed and first they strike you as weird and then you get them and then you burst out laughing before you know it and then you see people glaring at you because you are on a train and they all think you're mad. I like that. show less

Darlington has a great way with humour - giggle out loud stuff at times and you want to go back and read the jokes. The journey is also extremely interesting especially if you have been narrow boating yourself. Great encouragement for retirees to try something adventurous.