Bonjour France... let the real work begin!!

Goodness it feels like an age since I last wrote

SO.... I've left Viareggio



...ahhh Viareggio (you must visit if you ever get the chance..mountains, sea, gelati, pizza, tranquillo atmostphere, round the corner from Pisa, Florence and the glorious Toscana!!! )

and sailed (true sea farers term this "navigating".. LOVE IT) on my first "proper trip" to Nice, It took us 5 hours and I again was thoroughly overly excited.. the crew keeps taking the mic out of my ridiculous repetitions of "I'm so excited!" .. I'm not really styling it out and acting cool but who cares...

Just like to add at this point that I am loving this whole travelling and arriving by sea thing...

So we made it to French shores to start the real work.. I have been absolutely pooing my pants about this moment.. me serving food and beverages 5 star stylie on moving platforms!!!If you know me well enough your reaction will be like Beckalina's.. uncontrollable fits of hysterical laughter stiffled by mutters of "you can't that's impossible, you are WAY to clumsy!!" .. she's right of course.. hence my fits of fear.. but thankfully so far its been minimal damage and pretty damn good service.. but more of that later...

The boat was completely ready before we embarked on our first proper work moment.. As my first load of pictures were of its "work in progress" thought you might like to see more of it...

I give you: the "fly" - the owners sunbathing heaven on the top deck...

at the bow there is the crews outside area.. our own private sun trap...

The "poppa" - the half deck at 'de back of de boat' or more formally "the stern"!! - where the owners eat and people watch when we are in port..


The salon which houses Eric the Iguana (I've named him!) pictured earlier..

this charming Andy Warhol..


and this glorious dinner table.. that no-one uses and seems to be the home for another special friend of mine...

Another important development was the arrival of our uniform... I've been checking out all neighbouring crew to try and work out what might be instore for us.. it wasn't looking good with very "special" white blouses, nautical stripes on the shoulders and calf length skirts.. but thank the lord our owners wife is a fashionista with a boutique in Monaco and sent us all T-shirts, tracksuit tops and the guys got shorts / trousers.. we however had to go to the uniform shop in Antibes for our own "bottoms" - took me back to buying uniform for secondary school, it really was just like that shop in Twickenham - and we ended up having to buy the horrendous "Skorts!" much to my and Prue's disgust.. .

but you can't have everything and so far the fact that I can wear all my irrelvant bangles, nose ring and have my hair down coupled with OK T-shirts and jumper means I can bear the skorts.... JUST!!!


Now that we live all together on board (8 crew) I have discovered a few plus's and minus's...
The laundry - a definite minus - has increased and I am finding myself ironing everyday (a task I only managed once a year, if I was UNlucky, in my previous life!!).

The chef:

is on board full time and cooks amazing food for us.. and obviously for the owners...
this rests inbetween a minus ( the "stewy spread" is infamous amongst crews all over the world!) and a plus.. check out our tiger prawn and langostine feast!!!


I've also discovered that this really is like being on Big Brother without the TV cameras.. and I just want to say THANK GOD for Prue..without her I would be terminally insane rather than slightly bonkers!!!... 6 Italian men and 2 of us has proved interesting!!! Don't mean to offend but, I thought it was just women who did the whole tantrum, silent treatment, throwing a mood trick.. say No more.. but all I can say is I am beginning to sympathise with all contestants of BB!!!

So onto the work. This past month has consisted of us being based in Nice


and working weekends with the owners in St Tropez (dahling!).

our first weekend was just with the 2 children (Anna and Maria)


their nanny Anita and their dog Scooby



The kids are great and just want to play play play..we've been teaching them card games (21, spit/shithead) and trying to convince them that sunbathing really is fun: "come on girls lets go outside and get a tan" type of game.. their nanny is Polish and only speaks French, Russian and Polish, so my French is getting practise which I am pleased about. The real work translates to serving 3 meals a day, managing the cleaning of the boat and doing all laundry between the 2 of us.. The second weekend The Owner (kids father) came.. after the stomach filled with butterflys Hello, all went well... the hours are long we start at 8 and then work until latest 1.45am... we try and take it in turns to have a break in the afternoon.. am sure with practise and time we will get better at doing that...
we spent that week in St Tropez = evenings in port



and days anchored round the corner at the famous beaches of St Tropez..

I have been celeb spotting with Tamara Beckworth loving being our neighbour in port and stories of Penelope Cruz and Bono hanging around on a neighbouring boat for the Cannes film festival.. my shallowness was at its best as I nearly fell over board when Dolce and Gabbana's boat was pointed out to me with their Cannes film party in full swing, models bouncing around semi nude on the deck and EVERYTHING!!!...

Then towards the end of that week we met the girls mum and her sister... After a truely beautiful moment where I attempted to serve 5 glasses of champagne and dropped all of them spectacularly - but managing to smash only one, MAGIC!! - it has been pretty much plain sailing ('scuse the pun!!) I've served lunch to 13 while rocking madly on anchor.. dinner to 10 and multiple glasses of champagne and the legendary Russian vodka all in tact and looking delectable!
Prue with her excellent waitress skills has taught me how to carry the 3 plates and other little hospitality tricks.. like giggling and smiling whenever you muck something up - works a treat... Just have to say ...I've only worked in hospitality once, when i was 21 just before i went travelling in THE rugby pub in Twickenham when a very important tournement was on and the cutsomers seemed to want Guiness 24 hours a day... apart from that I have been an office bound business development / fundraising sort of girl.. not exactly equipped to do this type of work.. unless you want me to sell in the qualities of our chefs food which by the way I can do very well...so I can say with a huge amount of pride that yes, I served 13 people lunch, no problemo! And i can also say, as an observation, I actually like this type of work. It's easy! "What can I get you to drink?" Fine. Make it. Serve it. Done. Happy person (especially 4 glasses later). Dare I say it but I get a sense of achievement when i see the owner and guests happy.. and I don't have to bullshit my way through anything... its all straightforward plain sailing (!) work..

ANYWAY.. back to St Tropez.. it's quite entertaining when you come to park your boat in port.. all of the tourists in St Tropez decide to come and watch.. I wish I had a picture of it.. you feel very on stage.. and almost a little famous as you stand being watched.. Our crew do it all very tranquillo and cool, thank God, i have witnessed a few boats come in with their respective crews trying to act the part yet flapping around and panicking as the boat nears the port wall...It does make me laugh how shameless tourists are, as they stand gauping, pointing and staring.. i have vowed never to be like that..It also amazes me how we actually fit into the port.. St Tropez is quite small.. there are lots of big boats.. and our capitan is an expert at reversing into the smallest spaces... I am even getting a go at being a deckie as I use the fenders to help guide him in and avoid smashing up the millions of pounds worth of yachts around us (No pressure!).

When we finish the weekend the girls go to school in Monaco and we get some down time... I used one of these times off to go back to my old haunt in le Lot, to visit my sheep, the famous ambulance and see some old friends.. Suffice to say all is good, there are more little lambs so I am feeling all grandmotherly proud again..


even a goat
and some pigs have joined the clan...


My ambulance is safely tucked up at my French bessy mate Mia's house,


who I know will love and look after her, she is even helping me find a crazy mechanic who is hopefully going to convert it to Diesel and bring it back to life!!!(just the thought of that makes me feel SOO excited... I can almost smell the inevitable roadtrip that is so overdue in that baby!)

I visited my special secret lake and soaked up some rays with the lovely Ria

who put me up for one of the nights at her glorious french maison....


THANK YOU ROB AND RIA.. and Ria: am thinking of you loads, you are never far from my thoughts... hope you are back on your feet again and being strong!! xx xx xx


I used this visit as my chance to say Goodbye to my trusty Golfalina as I donated her to John and life on the farm. She returned the favour by blowing one of her front tyres much to the amusement of the local French passersby and to Ria... we almost fell apart laughing....thankfully a local lad helped me change the tyre and source a new one.. good ole golfalina.. hope she has some surprises left for John this summer!!!

I visited Fontaine at just the right time as it was Kyrans 7th birthday and it was so good to see both him and his brother again!!
back to Nice...




we spent the last weekend again in St Tropez and then were invitd to the owners apartment in Monaco to watch the Grand Prix, I was hoping to sneak off and scoot half way across the country at this point to catch Jo Hay's wedding, but it was not possible so I opted for a day away from all the crew and soaked up some rays with Prue on Nice beach..

That brings me nicely up to date as the following week we jetted back to Viareggio..


we are staying here until middle of next week when we navigate (!) over to Sardinia which will be my home for the month of June.. We are expecting the family to visit the boat at the weekends as per last month and hopefully we will use the down time in the week to explore a bit of Sardinia (cannot wait I hear it's beautiful).. But the best news of all is next week I have the go ahead to come home for my mums 60th. She is having a party near Ascot where all her friends and lots of family are coming. It's been ages since we've all been together it's going to be bloody excellent..I heard her say she is excited which, unlike her daughter, she never says!!! I'm really looking forward to the day .. Oh yeah she has asked me to make a short speech (not scared!!!) watch this space for news of the inevitable balls up!!!

.. On top of all of that I am hopefully going to get to see all of my friends and the new little arrivals who have come on the scene since March... my oldest mate Gemma is even over from Australia on a family visit.. God it almost sounds too perfect.. So if you are about and want to meet up..07722885645 bell me up!

Otherwise I'll be back with more sea faring tails soon.
Arrevederci!!