Ice on C est la Vie – 4 degrees

Update on the broken car. First, we have had to cancel our planned visit to England to celebrate the New Year. On top of this, last night was the coldest we have seen (-4 degrees) and there was ice on the inside of the boat windows this morning!

Car back at the Marina- Nuala still loves it

Currently our car is still broken down. Rodger Collins and his partner Elham who live on a barge in the Marina and also owns a tourist barge M.V. Delta (Rodger runs day trips for tourist on the Saone or hires the barge out for weddings or parties) has given us great help. Today he has arranged for his local mechanic to take a look at the car to see if it can be fixed at a cheaper price or do a temporary repair so that the car can be driven back to Ireland. This afternoon he is going to help me get the car to his mechanics garage. I got this idea from Alan Page, another boater who is currently on holidays in Australia but having read the blog on the car breakdown, emailed me and suggested I get a second opinion as the car might only need a simple repair like a fan belt. Thanks Alan and an even bigger thanks to Rodger who will spend all day helping me.

Small amount of snow caused 4 hour tailbacks on Geneva motorway

The first tough decision we had to make was to defer our planned visit to Neil and Bernie in England to celebrate the New Year with them. We were meant to go leave for England tomorrow morning but we had to take the pressure off ourselves and buy some time to see if our car can be fixed and if not where and what type of second hand car, should we buy. We rang and gave Neil & Bernie the bad news last night- but they understood and we plan to visit them before the end of this month. Plus its being so cold the travel conditions are not good. Especially in a car that is not reliable.

I have spent the morning looking at cost of second hand cars in France, England and Ireland. Surprising, comparing prices for the same make and model it looks like, cars are currently cheaper in Ireland than England. This must be due to high value of the British Pound versus the Euro and something that I would not have thought.

So hopefully the situation will get clearer over the next few days and we will know what we should do. Fix our car- buy one in Ireland and bring it back to France or do without a car and buy one when we get home in February.