I always, always take out European breakdown cover for these trips, and it was well worth it on this occasion. The scooter was whisked away and I was found a hire car (you never get a hire bike).
Now, bear in mind that since passing my car test two years ago I have driven my mum's automatic Clio perhaps half a dozen times, for a maximum of 9 miles in one go. Suddenly I had to pilot a left-hand drive manual 200 kilometers, some of it in the dark. I was frankly petrified.
(There was one good omen: the car was a Twingo, a model about which my best friend and I have had a running in-joke for the last fifteen years or so.)
It was a long, long drive. I must have stalled at every Stop line and traffic light between Poitiers and Cahors, including a hill start at a junction that Howard eventually had to get off his bike and do for me.
Howard coped exceedingly well with seven hours of bipolar behaviour (manic when I was driving successfully, depressive when I wasn't). We reached our final destination at 11:15PM, to the sound of barking dogs.
A late, fraught, bikeless arrival wasn't the first impression I'd wanted to give my longtime LJ friend
I have seldom been so grateful for a drink as I was for the carafe of red wine which waited on the kitchen table.