Narrow Dog To Carcassonne

Author: Darlington, Terry

Brand: Penguin Random House

Binding: paperback

Number Of Pages: 432

Release Date: 03-05-2006

Part Number: 9780553816693

Details: Product Description


'WE COULD BORE OURSELVES TO DEATH, DRINK OURSELVES TO DEATH, OR HAVE A BIT OF AN ADVENTURE...'When they retired Terry and Monica Darlington decided to sail their canal narrowboat across the Channel and down to the Mediterranean, together with their whippet Jim. They took advice from experts, who said they would die, together with their whippet Jim.On the Phyllis May you dive through six-foot waves in the Channel, are swept down the terrible Rhône, and fight for your life in a storm among the flamingos of the Camargue.You meet the French nobody meets - poets, captains, historians, drunks, bargees, men with guns, scholars, madmen - they all want to know the people on the painted boat and their narrow dog.You visit the France nobody knows - the backwaters of Flanders, the canals beneath Paris, the heavenly Yonne, the lost Burgundy Canal, the islands of the Saône, and the forbidden ways to the Mediterranean.Aliens, dicks, trolls, vandals, gongoozlers, killer fish and the walking dead all stand between our three innocents and their goal - many-towered Carcassonne.


Review


A richly atmospheric journey suffused with summer heat and occasional cabin fever, reaching its climax on the flamingo-studded inland sea of the Camargue... The writing is as muscular and lean as its canine hero, conjuring up dawn mist or giant catfish in prose haiku before moving on to the next killer one-liner... A rich and winning comic debut, destined to become a classic of the downshifting genre ―
Sunday Telegraph

A stunning book - racy, chatty, touching and very, very funny -- Joanna Lumley

The most amazing canal journey of them all ―
Daily Mail

One of my favourite books of the year -- Emma Soames ―
Saga Magazine

An astonishing read -- Libby Purves ―
Radio 4 Midweek


About the Author


Terry Darlington was brought up in Wales in the early forties between a Sunderland Flying Boat base and some oil storage tanks, an ill-chosen location at the time. In Stone in Staffordshire he founded Research Associates - market research worldwide - now run by the next generation, who are much better at it than he was. He also founded Stone Master Marathoners, and as President he is still used for ceremonial purposes. He likes boating but knows nothing about it.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.


Chapter One


Moon River Stone to Westminster
On the floor of the Star Inn Jim was fighting to push his entire body inside a bag of pork scratchings. I could have had a dog that ate its dinner, a dog that barked and wagged its tail, a normal dog, a dog with fur. But the book said a whippet was the easiest dog and I had trouble enough already.

Whippets are hounds-miners' dogs, racers, rabbiters. They are very thin. On top they are velvet and underneath they are bald. They are warm and smell of buttered toast. They love every living creature to a rapture unless you are small and furry and trying to get the hell out of here. They like running the towpaths and thieving off fishermen; but fire up the engine, cast off the ropes, and it's the eyes, the betrayed eyes. So the narrowboat Phyllis May has a dog that hates boating.

We'll call him Gonzales, I had said, because he's fast, or Leroy because he's golden brown, or we'll have a dog called Bony Moronie. Good thinking, said Monica, and named him Jim. He's your dog, she said-you look after him. I read Your Dog Is Watching You, and Your Dog Will Get You in the End, and How to Stop Your Dog Behaving Like a Bloody Animal. Jim and I went to school on many dark evenings, but neither of us learned very much.

The door from the canal opened and it was Clive. Like most inland boaters, Clive looks like a pregnant bear. Got you, he shouted-greedy greedy, early drinkies, surprise surprise, make mine a pint. He sat down and slapped his pipe and his Breton sailor's hat on the table. Jim was ecstatic. Jim sees Clive and Beryl as part of our pack, who sometimes make their escape owing to my lack o

EAN: 9780553816693

Package Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.0 x 1.3 inches

Languages: English