Well I’ll tell you something: I’m nothing if not a woman of my word. I’m a big fan of following through on stuff. If you say you’re gonna do it, then do it. Okay, this policy doesn’t apply to reducing wine consumption or to anything related to French bakeries, but last week I decided to crack open my emergency fund and blow it on travel. I’m happy to report that the Carpe Europe Project has officially begun.

I decided to start small. While poor Rusty has been slaving away at driving school (I’m still working on a loophole for me), I’ve been studying train schedules. So starting next month, the first stop on the giraffe express will be Avignon.

I’ve never been to the south of France but Neil lived there many years ago and if he had his way … I’m sorry, I’m just pausing to crack up over the concept of Neil having his way about anything … we’d be living down there. It’s his favourite part of France. Apparently the fact that the Avignon hospital has an entire wing dedicated to treating heat wave victims is only relevant to one of us. Anyway, since the poor man suffers so, what with working and now the driving debacle, I figured it was a fair place to start.

We’ll be sleeping here …

And sitting here …

And after all that sleeping and sitting, we’ll be eating here …

I’m squeezing this 3 day excursion in before I go back to Canada, that’s how committed I am to this caper. After I return from Canada, once I recover from the exhaustion of selling 17 books and the many long awaited reunions with everyone and anyone who’ll talk to me, I shall begin the plan in earnest.

Already I’m looking into one of my dream destinations — Ireland. Of course Neil’s pushing for somewhere where nobody speaks English. He keeps forgetting we’re going to Newfoundland. That’ll fix him.