Aston - 2

After visiting the Flanders Museum in the morning we set off for the Hooge Crater Museum (via the Menin Gate – just to hear the exhaust boom off the walls as my tribute to the fallen) but at less than three miles away we hardly warmed the car up. However parked in the sun on the side of the road for a couple of hours it hit 40 degrees inside.

From there we headed to Talbot House in Poperinge (15 miles away) again parking in the town relatively easily even if there were lots of speed bumps etc. on the way.

The run to the hotel from there was about 60 miles and we crossed from Belgium into France and passed Lille on main roads before joining rural A roads with the new 80kmh speed limit. On the run we passed the entrance to the huge Renault factory at Douai (George Besse). The area had a feel of the rundown industrial north - but with a lot more sun.

We arrived at the Manoir Les Cèdres and to be honest the entrance looked uninviting. A tight turn through an old iron gate and up a bumpy drive was followed by signs to the car park and about 500 yards of overgrown track. It was about as off road as I wanted to take the Aston. We parked up near a nice goat tethered up next to us. At least it was a safe place to park the car I thought as no one else could find it.

The hotel was set up for weddings and was aiming for the shabby-clique look - complete with heart shaped wall lamp holders - but reminded us of the old France if 30 years ago - before sanitation and modern trends had arrived. They did not do evening meals so they tried to find us a restaurant, but the two they phoned were shut – one for their summer holidays. We decided to head back to Douai and find a restaurant there but leaving grew into bigger top gear style challenge as we found the track out was overgrown and we were pushing past nettles and undergrowth as we went.

In the town we drove through the centre and there were virtually no open restaurants either. We parked on the street quickly when we stumbled on a trendy bar - they served us some snacks and frozen bread after a long wait – but we got to sit in the garden in the warm and watch the posh French drink/eat/natter.

On the way back the satnav took us through the side roads of the outskirts of a run-down area and over every steep speed bump in northern France before we had to navigate back through the tight gate and after a three point turn in the track as a short cut we parked up and woke up the goat.