But our hired Ford Focus estate - we upgraded from a Fiesta for a tenner a day extra because we had an awful lot of miles to cover, but drew the line at an additional £40 daily rate for a Beetle convertible - was hardly a threat to anyone.
And to compensate for the sharp reminder of how nasty us Brits can be on the road, there was the uplifting prospect of a long weekend in which we would visit daughters and a delightful new great niece, Elizabeth, who has had to make an early struggle against a rare heart condition. We'd also see (though this excited Mme Salut less) Fairport Convention, I would watch Sunderland AFC and we'd both be reacquainted with great Indian food.
So what went wrong? What made me cross in Banbury?
Not much, I am glad to say, went awry to get in the way of an enjoyable if hectic visit to the UK.
But the part that took us to Cropredy, the Oxfordshire village just outside Banbury where Fairport were hosting their annual festival, was marred by our failure to have that nostalgic Indian meal, or at least quite the one we wanted.
It is fair to say we ate royally elsewhere: a simple but pleasant Thai dinner at a tiny, family-run restaurant next to Turnham Green Tube station.....a plateau de fruits de mer as sumptuous as anything you'd get in Brittany, but this one was in Sunderland......a good fry-up breakfast at a seafront hotel, again in Sunderland....Sunday roast in Swaledale....a tasty chicken and rice concoction with friends in Ipswich.
That leaves a lot of dieting to do. But as ever on a visit home, we'd set our hearts on a good, basic Indian meal. And the golden opportunity was Friday lunchtime, in Banbury.
"Just go up there to that brown building and turn left," the woman said. "There's loads of them down there."
Indeed there were. Parsons Street, Banbury has a great choice of Indian restaurants. And every one of them was closed. I could understand them devising some sort of rota, taking it in turns to close if lunch trade is thin. But couldn't one of them have made the effort?
Not to worry, we found a pub, the Castle House, where chicken tikka masala was on the menu. Until the cook raced from the kitchen to offer clarification. It was, in fact, off the menu. No one had remembered to defrost the chicken, or some such reason.
She did rustle up a decent chili con carne. And then, lo and behold, there was an Indian food stall at the festival site. Let's say they did their best in a difficult setting; the "festival special" of samosas, bhajis, pakoras and nan was acceptable if limited.
Beginning to feel like a heroin addict in need of his fix, I may just have to resume that search in France.
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