But then you knew that already – at least, in the sense that I’m not all here most of the time.

The morning started off with me being well and truly here – up and about again nice and early which makes a change two days on the run.

And once breakfast was over and I had had a little relax, I went and assembled the coffee table.

once the coffee table was assembled, I went downstairs to fetch the desk. And by elephants that was heavy. I really struggled to get that up the stairs.

Assembling it wasn’t easy either. It was quite a complicated piece of furniture and very heavy tomove about. To have it finished, in position, vacuumed up the stuff on the floor in the bedroom where I wanted it to be, that was a task of a couple of hours.

I can certainly now understand why “old” people have to sit down for a cup of tea so often.

There are still some things left in Caliburn but I can’t bring them up by myself. It’s going to have to be a job of opening the packets in Caliburn and bringing up the stuff in two or three trips like I did last time.

But not today. It wore me out just doing that. But at least the place looks as if someone lives hers, and that’s certainly progress. Although the European Cardboard Box Mountain is blocking just about everywhere.

I managed some tidying up, but not a lot, and then I began to lose interest.

Instead of putting the clean clothes away in the cupboard, I put them in my suitcase, grabbed a few other things and then Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and I hit the road.

First stop was the estate agent’s. The barrier here to the car park is broken so we are having a new one installed. But the remote controls need to be handed in to be reprogrammed.

After that, we didn’t come home, we carried on driving.

Having a look at this sleepy little town here, you would be forgiven for thinking that it’s the back of beyond and there’s nothing whatever exciting about it.

And if you were to rely on the French Tourist Board and the French Ministry of the Interior, you’d still believe that.

Because there is absolutely nothing whatever to tell you that one of the most crucial moments in English history took place here at the town of Tinchebray.

While you admore some of the beautiful buildings and scenery here, let me tell you a little story.

And for this, you’ll have to turn your clock back 950 years.

William the Conqueror was Duke of Normandy prior to becoming King of England in 1066. And when he was King of England, he still retained his title to the Duchy of Normandy.

This was only a temporary solution. He had three surviving sons and on his death, he bequeathed his Normandy lands to his eldest son Robert Curthose.

His Kingdom in England was bequeathed to his second son, William Rufus, or William II. His youngest son Henry Beauclerc was given a suM of money.

William Rufus died childless (and regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous incarnations will recall thatwe once visited the scene of his death) and Robert being the oldest son expected to add the Crown of England to his titles.

Unfortunately Henry beat him to it and had himself crowned as Henry I, much to Robert’s dismay.

He gathered up a small army and invaded England, but the population refused to rise up to support him and he was obliged to return to Normandy.

There were continual intrigues as each brother tried to undermine the other, and there had been several skirmishes in Normandy between Robert’s supporters and Henry’s supporters.

Henry had already led an army there in a campaign that had ended indecisively, but in the summer of 1106 he was back again.

Late September saw him besieging the Castle here at Tinchebray.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no trace of the castle today. All that I know is that one contemporary report of the battle desribes the castle as “on a hill above the town”.

So if I were having to have a wild guess as to where “a hill above the town” might be, in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, that is the most likely-looking “hill above the town”, over there.

Robert led an army down from Falaise to try to break the siege, and the armies clashed on some flat land at the foot of the castle.

The site was constrained, and so the knights had to dismount and fight on foot, and if my guess is right as to the site of the castle, then the only constrained flat land at the foot would be that field there.

The result was a tragedy for Robert.

In less than an hour, his army was smashed and he was taken prisoner. He lived for the rest of his life, all 30 or so years of it, in captivity.

Normandy was united with the English crown and remained so until 1204.

And you won’t find a word of this anywhere in the town.

During the Royal Progress of Saint Louis, King Louis IX in April and May 1256 to consolidate his Kingdom, he is said by the Chronicler Eudes Rigaud, the Archbishiop of Rouen, to have visited the town.

This didn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere either, as far as I could see.

But here’s something exciting.

When was the last time that you saw one of these?

I saw one in Leuven once but you won’t have seen on in the UK for a while because only 15,000 were ever sold there and the last time that I checked, there were only about 700 still on the road.

It’s the Ford Probe of course, a badge-engineered Mazda that was intended to be the replacement for the Mustang and the Capri. But honestly, who would want to be seen in one of these?

That was the general Public’s response and the car bombed spectacularly. It was on sale for just three years – 1989-1992, and whereas the Capri was always in the Top 10 in the UK? this one was well stuck in the bottom 10.

Finding one on the roads today is something of a rarity.

So now I’m in a flea-pit in Alençon. When I’ve finished kicking out the bed bugs from between the sheets I’ll be hopping in.

I’m carrying on along the road tomorrow – I hope.

But I’ll just mention my tea, which was supposed to be chips with a tortilla wrap with nothing in it but vegetables.

And so the guy behind the counter thought it was funny to fill it with meat. He wasn’t laughing when I finished telling him what I thought of him.

It’s amazing how much French I know when I want to be offensive. Working for 15 years with a bunch of French-speaking chauffeurs did come in quite handy.