“18:00 - Convoy with Team Mare Riders takes a wrong turn. Then the Mare Riders have a ‘mare and Pete’s weekend bonfire is well and truly pissed upon. Comment dit-on en Francais, “Get a quote and I’ll send you the cash – don’t contact my insurance company”. Saxo rear lights and bumper cleared off the road and we’re ready to roll by 18:30.

To be fair if we were in England and two car loads of idiot French hooligans smashed into the back of my car at a blind dual carriageway junction and started taking photos of the ensuing carnage, the mood would have been a lot worse. Still cant quite believe he wouldn’t accept a straight swap, one Volvo 360 with hand painted realistic flame detail for a newish Saxo?!

19:15 - Border crossing to Switzerland was fortunately incident free, the damaged Stallion masked by tailgating Jenna past the border patrols and the value of our car doubled by the addition of Swiss motorway Vignette. Rapid repairs are made to Mare Riders’ headlights with the help of Mio sponsor stickers. Probably useful to have lights now it’s getting dark. Not so useful to have lights which only illuminate the roofs of tunnels, better switch on those fogs.