It feels like a wind of change is whipping the shrivelling leaves off the high trees here at Dookes H.Q..
The sky is leaden grey and the air is heavy with drizzle.

Possibly the season has finally caught up with us and now the recent sunny warm days in France are just a precious memory.

As we left our friends in Sainte Suzanne, steady rain was falling. Ever the optimist, Jean-Philipe said it would only last for the morning; he was right. By lunchtime in Rennes, the sun was poking through and we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon meandering to St Malo.

Well, ok we did call in at the Rennes Harley Davidson dealership on the way to see what was on offer! They had a rather fetching Electra-glide Ultra Limited in deep metallic maroon that quite took my eye, even Mrs Dookes approved of that one… The bike salesman was a pleasant chap who, though he knew that he was not going to make a sale with me, gave me lots of time and attention. Shame that couldn’t be said for the rest of the sales staff. Myself and three other potential customers stood around for ages trying to get served with general stuff, mainly clothing and accessories, without being able to get any staff to help us. Frustrated and demonstrating my dislike for poor customer service, I just dumped my selected goodies and walked out! Well, as Mrs D pointed out, I do have plenty of H-D tee shirts already! Yeah, I know, not much patience either!

St Malo was buzzing. The Route du Rhum race was in town, gearing up for the start on 2nd November and the place was heaving with visitors and sailing types.

The Route du Rhum is a transatlantic single-handed yacht race, which takes places every 4 years in November. The course is between Saint Malo, France and Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. The quickest boats will do it in a shave under two weeks, depending on the prevailing winds. Now in my younger days, I was quite fond of a bit of sailing. Two weeks across the Atlantic in November now seems like an awful lot of hard work. Mind you, to then spend some time in the Caribbean would be pretty ok, looking out of the window now!

Our last view the pleasant town of St Malo was from the balcony of our cabin as our ship slipped away from the jetty. It’s really quite a nice place, for a busy port.

…and now I’m back at the plotting table, with that enticing commodity a blank page in front of me.

It’s not just for the next trip, that’s always an exciting prospect; limited only by imagination.

No, now I’m beginning to realise that the clean canvas is for more than that.

It’s about defining the future of who I am and what I am going to be, for the foreseeable future of the remainder of whatever this mortal coil has in store.

Like I often say, stick with me, this could get interesting!

“The future’s in the air, I can feel it everywhere,
Blowing with the wind of change.”

Dookes