jpsellars.co.uk

It looks like the next couple of months at work are going to be pretty hectic, but at the moment I don’t care. I’m probably due a shouting at for something I forgot to do before going on leave but right now none of that matters because writing this from the garden of our villa in rural Provence all’s well with the world. It’s 29 degrees with a refreshing Mistral breeze, and the only company is the olive trees and the neat rows of vines, oh and the cicadas and the various other oversized creepy crawlies they have over here. I know it’s not good form to gloat, but – well, that’s the way it is sometimes.

Of course, my search for seclusion from the crowded little corner of England I call home has been typically eventful. I was supposed to be taking the XJR on its long distance trial, but intermittent running problems left us doubting its ability to make Calais let alone Cavaillon, so the job of getting us here was entrusted to my Rover 75. I could have headed straight for the autoroute but with all the grandeur of the Alps so close, it seemed a shame not to make a small deviation through Belgium, Germany and Switzerland on the way south.

A day on the autobahns, fast but civilised. A day on the Susten and Furka passes, tough but exhilarating. A day driving through rural France, terrifying. Yes, really.

There’s a road that threads its way south along the hillside from Apt near where we’re staying called the D943. It’s the equivalent of a ‘B’ road in the UK but poorly sighted and perilously narrow with no centre lines. If you look at it on a map, it’s just one long zig-zag. Hairpin left follows sharp right and then sharper right over narrow bridge. Repeat unremittingly for about ten kilometres. The longest straight is about enough to get the car into third for a second or two before going for the brakes again as the next chevron board looms large. ‘Roadcraft’ talks about something called limit point analysis for assessing the severity of bends but I don’t need that because I’ve got my parents in the car, so I just go by the volume of the wails of discontent in my left ear. Even I recognise, though, that this is a place for caution.

Unless you’re a local, it seems. Battered old 205s and Twingos (scrappage doesn’t seem to have caught on in these parts – good on them) appear from nowhere and form an impatient queue as I try to avoid the Xsara that’s just about to exit the blind left-hander where my front left wheel will be at roughly the same nanosecond. The fuel tanker ahead isn’t holding me up, it’s losing me rapidly. And the pretty little hillside villages of the Luberon are just as exciting. In the narrow winding streets there’s no one-way system, but the preferred practice seems to be to proceed at Mach One anyway and then hit the brakes hard if Monsieur E Leclerc happens to be coming around the corner. And finally, what’s the fascination with those annoying, noisy little scooters? Italy has a bit of a reputation for this sort of thing and you half expect rural France to be all nice and laid back with the occasional 2CV tootling along (though there are lots about), but it’s pretty manic on the roads here too.

I have to say, though, at this precise moment it doesn’t appear to matter.