Like the fact that I persistently thing that a 9 1/2 hour 400 mile drive across France is a good idea.

It is not a good idea.

The fun began the moment I got off the boat and was deposited directly into more or less gridlocked Le Havre rush hour traffic.

Most places in France are pretty well signposted, in my experience. You can make long journeys across country purely by following signs. They are clear, consistent, cleverly colour coded, and cogent, so long as 'Toutes Directions' and 'Autres Directions' make sense to you.

Except in Le Havre, where it looks like they got a British guy to do the signposting.

Situated just north of the Seine, the only way out of Le Havre heading south is across the Pont du Normandie. The Pont du Normandie is a huge and breathtakingly beautiful arched construction which is also the only toll road anywhere that I am prepared to pay for. The toll is only 5 Euro and the bridge is that breathtaking it always seems worth it.

So you would have thought, then, that the route from the ferry port to the Pont du Normandie would be well signposted.

It isn't.

I didn't see a single sign to it until I accidentally left Le Havre on the wrong road and turned round. Then I immediately saw a sign.

Maybe they're just pissed off with people arriving in Le Havre and immediately leaving. I dunno. Whatever.

Mind you, I could be wrong and have simply missed signs. I'd already had one Moment of Extreme Stupidity that morning when I got into the car ready to leave the ferry, opened my Michelin map of France and only then discovered, to my embarrassment, that Le Havre is not in fact Cherbourg, as I'd thought. Like I say, I'm really Not Right at the moment.

I drove for two hours before stopping somewhere for coffee. That was also dumb. Especially as they actually have coffee in France, unlike the UK, where they merely think they do. My first good cup of coffee in two years and I wait two hours drive for it. No idea where it was. Somewhere in the vicinity of Alencon, but not Alencon. Oh well.

I then drove a further two or three hours before stopping for lunch.

I hadn't eaten anything all day. I'd been driving for five hours, during which time I'd only managed 250 miles or so. It was baking hot. I was starving and dehydrated. I'd meant to stop an hour previously but found myself, for some reason, unable to. I just kept driving by places. It began to get dangerous.

Eventaully I managed to bring the car to a halt somewhere in between Saumur and Niort, in a tiny place called Le Coudray Macouard. There was a restaurant by the side of the road, open. I got out of the car and walked in.

"Bonjour monsieur," said the proprietor.

"Bonjour," I replied. "Je..."

I stopped, suddenly entirely unable to speak French. I tried to ask for a menu but produced nothing but a string of nonsense syllables. I tried again. More nonsense.

I tried English. Still nonsense. I couldn't speak at all, I was that vermischt.

Eventually I abandoned the attempt to ask for a menu and somehow managed to successfully ask for coffee, perhaps by producing the syllables 'ka' and 'fe' consecutively in the stream of nonsense. By this stage, the people in the restaurant were entirely convinced they were dealing with an idiot, but after some further complex negotiation involving a mix of French, English and telepathy, I managed to also successfully ask for a cheese sandwich.

By the time I'd eaten, had some coffee, and calmed down a bit, I realised I'd actually been to the very same place before two years ago, but by this stage was way too embarrassed to say anything. I finished the coffee and fled, noting as I left that they were closing for the day.

Coming up to Niort, (clearly the town where they invented motor racing) I saw the petrol tank guage dipping towards zero, and immediately passed several petrol stations without stopping.

"Oh, there'll be one in Niort," I thought.

There are. Several in fact. Only I somehow missed them all and found myself on the road out of town with the guage now reading empty, in rural France, where they really don't necessarily have many petrol stations.

I am not right at the moment but even I at least managed to work out that if I didn't immediately stop, turn round, and damn well find one of those petrol stations in Niort, I was going to run myself out completely at some random point in the middle of nowhere.

Naturally, it turned out that the station I finally went to was on the far side of roundabout I'd passed through earlier.

Feh.

En route again.

The last leg of the journey was more or less uneventful, although with the current French craze for turning everything into a roundabout, there was a Happy Fun moment trying to find the one right road out of Saujon, the last town before Meschers, as the route was blocked due to ongoing works on a roundabout.

I wish I had a camera to show you the 'Route Baree a 1m' sign placed carefully one metre before the roadblock. Oh well. Next time.

I've been to Meschers twice before, once three years ago with a band, and once two years ago after a row with $Singer, who I'd been been out in France doing duo gigs with. This is the first time it's just been a plain holiday. I can't remember the last time I had a holiday.

Anyway. Arrived in Meschers, parked up, and went to say hello to Tina, who immediately suggested I pitch my tent on the land round the back of the cafe rather than pay for a camp site. My resolve not to impose on her dissolved remarkably quickly, especially as it turned out there was already a tent there, empty, which I could use.

Got horribly drunk that night. First had a few drinks with $Singer, whose current girlfriend C. is now the chef at Tina's. Then more wine back at Tina's, watching her play. Then, after playing a few songs myself, badly, far too much cognac. I vaguely remember going back to $Singer and C.'s briefly after Tina's closed, but have no recollection of anything further.