There was no way past him. The exit for Orleans passed us by.

“Bastard” screamed my father impotently.

The monster truck was enjoying his little game with us. When we slowed down, so did he. He made us miss the next turn off as well.

“Right, that’s it. Now I’ve had enough of you clowns”. Dad’s face now set grim and determined. As we approached the next exit, he hit the brakes hard and executed a move not unlike the one Michael Schumacher made to win the Formula One championship by wiping out his nearest challenger on the first bend of the decisive race. You remember that unfortunate accident? Certainly not deliberate, right? Yes, right.

Dads move worked without a collision and at last we had escaped The Peripherique. Thank God.

We drove a short distance and pulled in at a parking spot. Dad was shaking as the adrenaline slowly ebbed out of his system. He took several moments to regain some composure.

“Okay then. Where are we exactly?”

Mum looked just a touch blank. My little brother came to her rescue “France, daddy”.

“Nobody likes a smart ass, John, so leave the map reading to your mother please”.

He turned back to mother. “Any ideas? Any at all?”

“Not really too sure. Got a little confused when we missed the Orleans turn off. Did we overshoot by two junctions or three? Tell you what, why don’t we get back on the ring road going the other way until we get back to where we should be.”

This suggestion was just enough to send dads new found composure to the back of the draw where you keep odd socks, just in case one day you happen across the missing one.

“Are you mental, woman? I am never, ever, ever going on that road again. Not even if it means we have to go home via Copenhagen to avoid it.”

He had started to shake again at the mere thought of getting on and off the Peripherique again, his left eye developing a nervous twitch. He gripped the steering wheel and began muttering to himself: “Think calm thoughts. Think calm thoughts. Remember there are children in the car. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In pastures green…”

Half way through reciting the psalm he regained control, took a deep, deep breath and asked to see the map. Mum was happy to hand it over.

Dad has always had a brilliant sense of direction – my Uncle Alan reckoned he was three parts Irish and one part homing pigeon. He studied the map for a few minutes, then went through an elaborate charade with the sole intention of entertaining us kids.

Firstly he leaned out the window and checked the angle of the sun against the time on his wristwatch. Then he wet one finger and held it up to check the wind direction.

“Hmm, Chartres dead ahead. We can pick up signs for Orleans there,” he announced. A couple of minutes drive later the sign for Chartres appeared.

“ Awesome Dad. Way to go Tonto!”

“All in a days work for an ex cowboy like me,” he said modestly. This statement was only partly accurate. As a boy back in Ireland he used to spend his summer holidays on a farm helping out. Sometimes he would look after cows. Cow boy sounds just like cowboy if you say it quick. And he could ride a horse.

On the way into Chartres we picked up the signs for ‘Centre Ville’ or town centre if you like. Once in the town centre another sign, ‘Toutes Directions’ led us back out again. A turn off the main road indicated ‘Orleans’. We were back on track, but on a minor road not a main route.

This was a single lane in each direction. The road had a pronounced camber with drainage ditches running along each side. Tall poplar trees flanked the route, providing a welcome shade from the afternoon sun.

It was easy to imagine it packed with refugees fleeing ahead of the advancing German troops just thirty years before. Now the road was quiet. The only people blitzkrieging their way along it were us. Dad was trying to make up lost time. We were going through sleepy villages and hamlets so fast, that it is a wonder they didn’t scramble the French airforce to intercept. For the rest of the holiday, my little sister was convinced that all the sheep and cows were about thirty feet long and blurred in shape.

It was late afternoon when we reached Orleans and found the “Toutes Directions” signs. All the car windows were open but it was still stifling hot inside, as we crawled along the busy rush hour streets of the city. At one point the road ran alongside a broad river spanned by several bridges. We stopped at a set of red traffic lights. On our left stood a charming pavement café, where a family of four were enjoying delicious looking ice cream sundaes. At another table an elderly chap in a grey flannel suit was reading a newspaper, sipping alternately between his coffee and a large brandy.

“Lord I would murder for one of those ice creams,” Mum voiced aloud what the rest of us were also thinking.

“Know what you mean love” agreed Dad. “Never mind. With a bit of luck this time tomorrow we will be on a beach in Spain sipping pina colada.”

I had no idea what a pina colada was, but I was very much looking forward to finding out.

The lights changed to green and our car followed the general flow of traffic onto a bridge and across the river. Progress out of Orleans was proving to be very slow going. It’s a big place and everybody around was heading home at the same time. After about forty-five minutes we were again running parallel with the river and stopped at another set of traffic lights. They certainly went in for charming riverside pavement cafes in this place.

Wait a minute – isn’t that the same elderly chap in the flannel suit? So it was. The family had gone. By now the man had finished his newspaper and was reclining in his chair, head back and eyes closed. A fresh brandy in his hand, he was enjoying the last of the afternoon sun on his face.

Judging from the steam coming out of our driver’s ears and the groan of dismay from the front passenger seat, I was not the only one to have noticed.

“I think we should carry straight on past the lights and keep the river on our left,” suggested mother with little conviction. “What a great idea,” said the driver sarcastically.

“Eventually the river will reach the Atlantic. Then we can hug the coastline down past Portugal, round the Straits of Gibraltar, up the Mediterranean and approach the campsite from the south. Hey! That saves us getting lost in Barcelona! Brilliant”

He was losing his sense of humour, I could tell. I was already dreading the rest of the trip.

“What do you think kids? Anybody in the back know the Portuguese for thirty liters of petrol please?”

He ate some more caffeine tablets, wiped his tired eyes with a wet wipe and sullenly drove on, keeping the river on our left.

More by good luck than good judgement we found the way out of Orleans and rediscovered the auto route south.

Once again we were low on petrol, but we insisted dad keep driving until we reached a Total filling station so we could add to our collection of miniature plastic busts of famous French people that we had never heard of. The lady who took our money handed me a small plastic Voltaire. I showed her our expanding haul of plastic busts to indicate that we already had a Voltaire. She kindly exchanged it for a Debussy and threw in a Jules Verne for good measure. The day wasn’t going so badly after all.

Evening turned to night. In the back of the car we dozed fitfully as dad drove on, ever closer to the Spanish border. By now dad had been driving for over twenty-four hours, much of it on the opposite side of the road to what he was used to. It was a stressful journey, particularly for dad.

Despite having consumed the caffeine equivalent to a couple of Starbucks Coffee Houses, his head was starting to nod and he was struggling to maintain concentration.