As promised, here’s an account of my misadventures in France.   The intention was to drive, with the dog for company, down to Nice, and back along the West coast of France to my house in Brittany.   It’s a long, long story, so I’ll post in installments.   And it’s contemporaneous -- based on the emails I sent to a friend as the events unfolded.

Well, here I am in Dijon, but there has been a series of disasters. I’m going to have to edit this severely, or you’ll lost the will to live...

I had about three hours sleep -- my ability to mobilise seems to be getting worse. Drove frantically to Folkestone and got to the Channel Tunnel terminal just on time. The instructions said you had to use in the check-in machine the card you’d used for booking. I drove up to the machine, dug about in my bag. No card. No purse! I’m assuming (because if I didn’t I’d go completely mad) that I’ve left it in the house. I back out, severely annoying the people behind me, and got out of the car, looking wildly for a human being to talk to. A nice man appeared and said, "You look lost..." He got me through, but I was in a complete funk, because all my credit/debit cards were in the purse, except for a few I’d shoved into my Euro purse. Cards without PINS which renders them useless... For some reason (anticipation of madness?) I’d grabbed a new Halifax card AND the new PIN information as I left the house. Sitting in the car, waiting for the train to leave, I phoned Halifax to get the card activated. Phew...

It was a very long drive to my first stop, Reims, and when I got there I was exhausted. When I finally found the hotel, there was nowhere to park. I drove round and round before seeing someone driving into an underground carpark at the back of the hotel. In a moment of madness, I followed. It was like something from a World War II bunker, and clearly wrong. As I registered this, the metal door closed behind me.

Panic, panic, panic. The Bitch was squealing, always a bad sign.

I approached the doors and they began to open, but it was because someone had triggered them from outside. I tried to get out, he tried to get in. Something scraped against my passenger side. I got out, the car was rattling.

I wish I’d taken a picture. The whole of the left-hand side had been stripped away. Yes it did look like an opened sardine can, and the whole of the engine was exposed. I got out into the street and parked (illegally.)

Long story; the people at the hotel were wonderful; I phoned my insurers who were not... phone calls not answered; I got put through to medical emergency, to domestic accidents (who took all my details, something lasting half-an-hour, before telling me I’d have to start again...)

This morning, a cheerful little man came and towed the car away. Of course, I’m here for three weeks, and was intending to go to the house at the end of it, so I had massive amounts of luggage, three suitcases, food, tea, coffee, three computers, two cameras, birthday presents, whisky, sherry, champagne, ginger-ale, books, CDs, dog food, dog bed - you name it. All of this had to be removed from the car and carried by me several blocks away into the hotel. Then a taxi arrived to take me to a hire car place. Fine, but they have no English, my French has deserted me, in my state of panic. Eventually, I walked out to pick up the car, aware they were watching me from the panoramic windows. I got to the car, stepped off the curb, and fell. All they would have seen was this weird woman going between two cars and disappearing...

Yes, it’s a nice car, but it’s a left-hand drive and the gears are on the wrong side. Weird driving my me in the BIG city of Reims, and later on the motorway.

I got all the bags out of the hotel room and into the hire-car. Began to set up my Sat Nav, which with great presence of mind I’d rescued from the car. And realised I’d left the power lead, which connects to the cigar lighter thing, and without which it won’t work, in my own car...

I spent the whole morning, sitting outside the hotel phoning around. Finally tracked down the garage where the car had been taken -- somewhere out in the suburbs -- but of course, I dont have my Sat Nav, so almost impossible to find. I got there eventually. The man was charming. "Oh no, your car has been moved to the Fiat garage." The Fiat garage is the other side of Reims, and I’m supposed to be halfway to Dijon. And my driving is getting more and more erratic.

I found the Fiat garage. The proprietor reminded me of Vladimir Putin only rather less charismatic and attractive (!)   He gave me a lecture about not having my ’carte gris’ the car’s documents, which is a legal requirement in France. "If the police stop you," he said (in French, all these conversations were in French, which is why I’m so unhinged...) they will think you’ve stolen it." Which given that the car looks like an opened sardine tin, actually made me laugh. Anyhow, I got my lead, and I’ll worry about how I’m going to get the car back later. Tomorrow is another day, right?

Drove to Dijon; nice motorway driving, but I keep going too near to things on the right. Drove round and round the hotel trying to park and the Sat Nav started saying "go to the nearest road" which was frightening. Turns out the card with all the French maps on it had been dislodged.

I found a parking space a long way away, ferried half of my bags and the increasingly querulous Bitch to the hotel. They have some sort of a deal with the Gare, which is opposite. I went out again, moved the car into the multi-storey, brought back some more luggage.

Now I shall sleep. Avignon tomorrow.