Before I even start the engine let me say a huge thank you for all those birthday greetings – would that I had clearer memories of the various celebratory events to share with you, although doubtless someone, somewhere is cruelly posting a video on YouTube …

As a reward I am going to give you a sneak preview of chapter one of my new soon-to-be best seller, the no-holds-barred tale of the adventures during my summer road trip, incidentally still under way.

On the Road.  Chapter One

Having recently trailed round the back roads of Dorset in a fruitless attempt to locate Dartmouth,  I decided to invest 300 English pounds in a new sat nav for my road trip north which turned out to be surplus to requirements until Carlisle as someone from the very area I was visiting in Scotland had provided me with a blindingly brilliant route which meant we crossed the border in about three hours after leaving London.  Sadly my high spirits and good nature, as usual you are no doubt thinking, got the better of me and I allowed my travelling companion, Thelma, to take charge of navigation.  Readers, it is not in my nature to be harsh but this was a girl who wasn’t even allowed to ATTEMPT geography O level.  Days later we were still hopelessly lost having driven around every small town in the Borders while she tried to spot familiar landmarks.  Given our destination was next to the bloody River Tweed and a mountain even I imagined she would be able to find it.  We ended up telephoning our hostess who drove through the night to the rescue.

Next day we decided that given the weakness of her map reading we had better brush up on her history skills and give her a practical demonstration of the American political practice of water boarding. This had to be temporarily delayed, no water being available as Thelma, who had been given the apparently simple task of washing up the night before, had managed to block every sink in the house.  I was scouring the streets at six in the morning searching for chemicals and plungers whilst Louise, the third member of our party,  struggled to find a printer that worked in order to get Thelma’s air ticket sorted.

It was like Black Friday at a Comet store as she unearthed endless, long-abandoned computer accessories from cobwebbed cupboards. We decided that going to Guantanamo would be a more deserved destination than Gatwick and I resolved find my way back to England alone and guided by the stars, that being a more reliable option.

Air travel plans had to be abandoned after about eight hours of Printer-gate as it transpired that Thelma had not brought any photo ID with her on the grounds that it would have been “too heavy to carry” meaning that the entire Men’s Final was passed in trying to book a train ticket instead.  And, by the by, crying over a blister?  Try childbirth, mate.

In the spirit of an educational Hansel and Greta re-run we finally gave in to her whining to go for a walk  (Walk? Walk? Why?) and drove her into a thick forest with detailed instructions, doubtless instantly forgotten,  on how to get back.  We went home and not being minded to construct a gingerbread house, proceeded to sample a delightful locally sourced gin which had the same name as the house!  Fate or what?  Four hours later there was still no sign of our rambler but it being a Sunday we thought the police wouldn’t locate the body till the next day at the soonest when we would probably have sobered up enough identify the remains.

The earlier part of the day had been spent on an Agent Orange assault on the garden – undertaken whilst Madame Thelma lounged in the bath looking at the pictures in The Mail on Sunday – and it was decided, in retrospect unwisely, to have the conflagration of a 20 foot pile of green waste at the same time as the gin-tasting.  Ta da!  Smoke boarding! Hopefully a better lesson than writing out 200 times “I must pack my passport and not block drains”.  Verily, the way forward.

The adventure continues ….