Note: this article will be re-housed in a more reader-friendly location and format at a later date.

May 2009, and once more I make a charge south for an assault on the Frenchies, armed with my Renault 4 as a cunning disguise. This time, I was starting out on a three-month-long study mission to Lyon, a city I'd originally happened across during my Interrail trip of some years earlier, and which I'd been keen to rediscover. One hurdle needed overcoming before I could begin, apparent when my rusty old exhaust pipe started blowing suddenly.

I'd not had any exhaust repairs or replacements done since I purchased the car in summer 2004, but now the centre section had a gaping hole that was lending my Reflexia a rather pleasant rasping tone. Trouble was, it was just at the join of the front piece, the hole soon turned into a complete breakage and the remainder of the exhaust behind, including the silencer, was being held by just one mount in the middle, since the rear one had broken and another was mysteriously astray from the pipe itself. After a temporary fix with some GumGum tape, and the possibility of using one half of the former rubber mounting to secure the rear end tight, keeping the whole pipe rigid and the broken portion in line, I spent the next week and a half wasting time around Brighton and Hove trying to get it properly sorted.

The old adage that somewhere is only as good as the last time you visited it certainly held true. The tyre and exhaust fitters, Brighton Tyres, that I'd been to the previous autumn to deal with all my punctures, and which I considered an honest, genuine and helpful supplier, turned out to be anything but and messed me about for a few days, calling my car in and then doing nothing with it, before ultimately declaring that they could neither source the original part, nor knock up some piece of replacement pipe since it was too narrow by today's standards. When I enquired as to whether they could recommend anywhere else local that I might try first, the bloke asked me if I had such a thing as the Internet. When I replied in the affirmative, he suggested 'well you go on there, go onto Google and type in EBAY', and put the phone down. Admittedly, it must have riled him that he'd wasted so much of my time already and I surely deserved a dose of patronising for good measure.

Another local garage I'm familiar with had no trouble sourcing the part, and they booked the car in a couple of days later when it had arrived. I went for a walkabout during the hour they needed to attach it, only to receive a call some minutes later saying it didn't fit and they weren't sure why. Since that was the only part available, they explained that the fitment at the front end was off line by a considerable margin, suggesting either their part was for another model or my previous fitting had used pieces from a different car. The latter seemed plausible and perhaps a former owner had adapted parts from an earlier or later R4, maybe even a van.

With just a week remaining until I set sail for the shores of Dunkirk, I was forced to go and bother the local big Renault dealership in Brighton. The main parts guy seemed like an old hand and he was helpful in suggesting the best way forward, which would necessitate replacing an additional portion of pipe in front of the rotten piece in the middle. It would add to costs that were already not easily digestible, this being the kingdom of modern Renault where such things as vehicle repairs and parts replacement are now engineered to be beyond the reach of the average home mechanic. Their showroom and workshop adjoin each other, but they seem to have a plan to distract the owner from the dirty work of what goes on underneath the shiny carrosserie of the metal transportation tins they market as dream experiences. A git in a suit appeared, jangling keys as if to imply he was important and busy, and he was notably perturbed when the parts guy asked if he could carry out a favour for him and bring my car into the garage, since a queue of tetchy people-carrier owners on their way to Saturday morning supermarket hell trips with kids were gathering behind me and expecting service NOW or they just might stand around huffing and looking a bit agitated in an English way.

Gitboy took my keys and strode out to my car in a manner to suggest they really didn't have time for people like me, who dared to suggest that they stick the car up on the ramps to ensure they were going to order the right parts. He couldn't fathom out the gears and I guided him into the large, empty workshop, whereupon he got out and made wild sweeping gestures with his arm, barking at me to leave the workshop as it's not a public area. I was trying to point out an issue with the exhaust that he should be aware of, but he talked over me saying I must get out first. When I crossed the line in the ground where the workshop doors pull across, he did a 180-degree pirouette and stopped me, indicating that I was now allowed to speak. I began to explain the predicament to his holiness but he immediately realised that I was going to make comments suggesting some knowledge of a car part, something I'm clearly not supposed to be aware exists, and he insisted they, the experts, would figure everything out themselves.

I watched these same experts examining the car for the next twenty minutes and trying to figure out how it all worked. When I returned some days later to have the parts fitted, I could overhear comments of mirth and mocking between the mechanics at the back of the workshop, for whom the Four's presence provided some novelty value for the day. Whilst I was assured that the job would commence immediately that morning and be finished within an hour (since I was not overjoyed at the prospect of finding things to do in Hollingbury Industrial Estate on a grey day), by the time I had experienced the full joy of an hour and a half browsing the aisles in neighbouring Matalan, I was then told that further small parts had been ordered to finish the job and it 'wouldn't be much longer'. I headed off to Asda and managed to do a full week's shopping - a full month even - since I was stocking up for France. Back at the garage, still nothing, tick tock tick tock. I finally got away with the time approaching 1pm. It seems no wonder to me that Renault in the UK have consistently come bottom of the tables for after-sales care and service. Nevertheless, the actual job was done properly, and they managed to fit the new pipe to the dodgy front end of the back box without forcing a costly replacement of that as well. Strangely, I can still feel a small amount of blowing around the joins, and the car has an interesting aural tone, slightly more raspy than usual and akin to the sound of an older classic.

I had managed to secure a very cheap deal on the ferry crossing, paying just £49 for a return including a free amendment, albeit taking the long route around to Dover and across to Dunkirk. The special offer I received from Norfolkline had expired with me being unable to book online beforehand due to a server error, and they'd failed to respond to my enquiry despite their assurances that all emails are answered within 24 hours. In bemusement, I'd decided to ditch them and find the next cheapest deal, but since this was around double the price, a week later I emailed them again and held them to ransom in demanding they honour the original deal. They told me they would comply if I rang them to make the booking within a day. When I did, the girl I spoke to took this exception to the rules personally and was astonishingly rude and unprofessional in her attitude towards me; tutting, huffing and repeatedly proclaiming the whole thing as 'absolutely ridiculous'. She asked what price I had originally been quoted, and when I offered the forty-nine pounds, she angrily retorted 'so basically what you're gonna just pay half the price you should be paying?' I couldn't help but push her further to the point of crushing her own coffee cup in embittered Friday afternoon frustration, in seeking her assurance that I would also still have entitlement to the free amendment, which she reluctantly confirmed. 'Well I'll put it through but I'm going to have to put a note on here because I'm not taking responsibility for this one', was her last attempt to impart guilt in my direction.

And so, around the beginning of May, I set off again in Reflexia, following nothing more tortuous than a tyre pressure, oil and water check, and disembarked at Dunkerque with my usual intent of following all the non-toll roads down through France. I'd been trying to avoid the Dunkerque bit of the trip by cunningly falling asleep in the ship's café and having to be woken by a passenger in a long line of others all smirking at me as they queued to get off. As the only passenger in my car, I'm not sure what my plan was for a replacement driver on the journey out of the port, but I was eager to avert my gaze from the surroundings if at all possible. The port was familiar to me since I'd taken the same route when going to Holland some eighteen months earlier, and I can only describe Dunkerque docks as a cross between a battlefield (that one at least is true), a nuclear fallout zone and an oversized concentration camp all rolled into one bleak, desolate landscape. Throw in a few sinister chimneys and chemical plants, and concrete carbunkle monstrosities and you've got just about the most grim, depressing looking horizon you could ever wish to be greeted by when making first landing in another nation. And I used to think Newhaven was bad.

I was hoping to make it to Troyes by nightfall, a good midway point and location of yet another FastHotel, the cheapy chain I'd decided to adopt following my several stops back in my December tour to France and Spain. This was a new side of France I'd not encountered by car previously, but all was going according to plan as I skirted south around Lille, until a minor load-shedding accident ahead slowed traffic down and forced it around a police cone zone that was still in the process of being created. At that very moment, as more Policiez appeared in my rear view, the indicator light on my instrument panel went into a short spasm after which all power was lost. I had no option but to use the last few rolls of the wheels to pull over to the grass verge.

As I pulled up right in front of the cones, my electrics had completely gone, hence I was unable to put my hazards on, and all traffic behind thought I was some English idiot who had seen the cones and the police and thought he had to stop. I immediately got out and lifted the bonnet, if only to prove I had halted for a reason, and the police came trotting over asking me why I had bothered to stop, as though the sight of the wooden planks falling off a lorry in front would have been good enough rubbernecking material to force my decision. They tested my ignition themselves to be sure I wasn't a complete loser, and offered me a card for a local garage. Just as all had been going so well, I suddenly had that sinking feeling and all felt lost, as I contemplated a night in a humdrum town going nowhere. Worse still, I'd been able to pick up BBC Radio thus far and I was only twenty minutes away from finding out if my home football club, Brighton & Hove Albion, were due to be relegated or not. Now that essential pleasure had also been removed.

I twiddled a few leads as if to imply that I actually had a clue what might be wrong, and the police went on their way, the accident was cleared and I stood alone amongst the deep jungle they had pushed me further into in order to keep me out of the road. As is common with a Renault 4, merely looking at it in disgust is usually enough to make it feel guilty enough to start working again, and when I next turned the key everything was back to normal. I drove off before the snakes and tigers got to me. I passed the police again shortly afterwards, who were coming back the other way, and they looked at me perplexed, probably thinking that I'd been having them on all along and I'd managed to get my secret snaps of wooden beams after all.

The journey onwards to Troyes followed deserted roads lined with bright yellow rape fields, along high flat plains, occasionally descending into a town with distant views to power stations on the horizon. I had the country to myself, and all sorts of strange smells were coming my way through the vents on the dashboard, usually a combination of floral aromas mixed with leaking battery acid. My windscreen was becoming splattered with an exotic array of species. All manner of giant winged beasts were smashing into me as if under orders of the French Insect Battalion. Literally hundreds, if not thousands more than I've ever acquired on any other drive. My front view looked phenomenal now, like a model no-mans-land warzone in miniature. All sorts of colours, blood red, blood black, blood orange, blood green, you name it I had it. Limbs, weapons, armour and guts, all splayed across the screen in glorious 3D. Flicking the wipers on was some sadistic horror show.

I pressed on into the darkness, winding through small French villages amongst the few yet spared a bypass, and which force sudden right-angle turns from motorists doing 110km/h for the previous couple of hours. As I had come to expect of France by now, everywhere was empty and looked dead, like a set for a remake of The Omega Man, except with Charlton Heston replaced by a maverick Renault 4 driver. I was still eighty kilometres from Troyes, and my fuel needle was putting on its pyjamas and settling down for a nice sleep. The car wasn't the only thing getting hungry. I'd eaten little all day and had been banking on a meal when I reached my hotel, but that seemed a long way off and amenities would likely be shut by the time I got there. This being France, however, nothing resembling a filling station or take-away came my way for dozens of miles. Not after 6pm on a Saturday. God forbid.

I'd experienced the needle-in-a-coma situation a few times during my last French fling with the car, and once again I could see no movement at all. The car was now running on some unknown force, probably the juices of all the creatures that had amassed on its front. I persevered, and wondered how many more gradual reductions in distance to Troyes the signposts would advise me of before I could actually perceive something credibly resembling the town itself. As I finally hit a stretch of dual carriageway aimed towards a sky glowing with amber street lamp pollution, I pleaded for there to be a garage that was still open, and which didn't throw a funny French fit at my foreign credit card, like so many do. I spotted one on the other side of the dual carriageway, necessitating a complex navigation of unmarked slip roads to double back and retrieve it, and as I filled up I wondered about the next tedious step of trying to find the FastHotel, which would typically be in the outskirts on the other side of town, near some noisy motorway junction or airport, or industrial estate, or petrol station. I glanced up at the pump and there it was right next to me (next to the petrol station, road junction and industrial estate; what else did I expect?)

Sadly, the room wasn't so clean and had a combined toilet / shower cubicle no bigger than a dustbin. Bloody noisy too, with some kind of hooker's wedding reception taking place in a neighbouring room. So after little sleep, I arose Sunday morning and tried to get out of Troyes, but it was one of those French towns that seems intent on not displaying any road signs whatsoever for its nearest neighbour towns, i.e. the ones almost everybody needs to find, probably due to some petty competitive jealousy and bureaucratic action of years gone by. So, knowing the next big town on my trajectory was Chat.... something or other, basically three words the first starting Cha, the second a proposition, hyphenated with something watery at the end, I finally saw signs to Chalon-en-Champagne and followed them, relieved to find my way out of the maze.

With grey skies everywhere, the sun provided no navigational aid, and I trotted along another deserted A road for about seventy kilometres, but then started to wonder why none of the villages I passed were on my map. Pausing to check my situation, I was astounded to find that I was in fact travelling north-east, on the way back to England! Normally my sense of direction is very good, but this one completely dumbfounded me. So two hours and fifteen quid of wasted time and petrol later, I was back on course for Chatillon-sur-Seine, and decided to break with tradition and use a few toll roads to speed things up. I arrived in Lyon after 6pm.

Further electrical faults occurred whilst driving around the streets of Reflexia's new home city, and it seems to have been nothing more than a bad contact on the battery due to a piece of plastic protective fitting around the leads being too large. Lyon is quite an extraordinary city in many ways, but certainly to drive around is both fun and frustrating at the same time. I will regularly dive into tunnels that bore deep under hills and under the city, but then get thrown off into wrong lanes and nightmare traffic systems that seem to defy logic and deposit me on the other side of a wide river to where I wanted to be, competing with trolleybuses for roadspace. It's a city I love and may settle in longer term, depending on circumstances, so Reflexia will be sure to feature in further escapades here if she doesn't become too French and go on strike every time I try to go anywhere. For a car that's already celebrated her quarter-century, she's a precious friend to have around in an unfamiliar land.