Did they have me marked down as a hit-man in a 1994 Honda Civic?

I parked up the Honda, which I am pleased to announce has just passed its MOT and is good for another two years, taking it up to 20 years old. It was Ellie’s runabout –still is actually – purchased for some £400 just prior to out emigrating eight years ago, and it has served us well.

I had our Skoda and motor home mot’d at the same time, and they too are good for another two years. I had to put two new tyres on the Honda, but that is a small price to pay.

The last of our daughters left the previous evening after a fortnight of family get togethers, with six grandchildren and a couple of their friends, coming at us in relays. Tiring, perhaps, but very uplifting and worthwhile and with our new swimming pool – one of the wooden pools that are very popular in France – the kids never got bored.

I have purchased a counter current from England, which means you switch it on and swim in the same place, as with a treadmill, and so we did not need anything larger than a 5m X 3.5m pool, (1,2M deep), which serves as a refreshing dip and with the counter-current on, if you so desire, to be active.

That is one of the advantages as the entire kit and concreting the base rounded off at £4,000, which is quite a bargain price. I mention this just in case you picture us on an ornate patio with steps down to a sunken pool. I worked on the Watford Observer, not a national newspaper.

Anyway, I digress.

The sun was shining, the three dogs shed their loads and, after a visit to the dustbin, we headed across the fields, where they searched for rabbits, before retracing our steps across two football pitches and back to the Green Way.

Our big dog, Woody, who tries to avoid as many humans as possible, suddenly took a different route back to the car. He had obviously seen something he did not like as he was some way ahead of us. Eventually I saw what had disturbed him. Four gendarmes – three males and a female – had surrounded our car, looking at the MOT and insurance certificates, both of which have to be displayed on the windscreen.

As I approached, I asked if there was a problem. They replied by asking for the car’s papers.

After very deliberately putting the dogs back in the car, I brought out the log book (carte grise) and was then asked for my driving license. I inquired as to why but was treated with some disdain.

I confess I was irritated. Eventually one asked the female if I spoke French, she said “a little” and then he turned to me and explained in English.

“A year ago you had your car stolen,” he said. “You have to come and sign at the station.”

I pointed out that a year ago, I mistakenly thought I had had my car stolen and that two days later the police found it where I had in fact left it. I had become a little lost in the woods and had emerged at another parking place we use, only to find the car was not there. I did not then nor for another two days, connect the fact the two walks merged into each other on the mountain.

Having found the car last summer, the police took me to the station where I had signed a statement saying the car had now been found and the case closed.

This I explained to the gendarmes as they stood before me but they were adamant I had to return to the station. They escorted my car back and made sure where I parked. Inside the station, another three joined them round the computer and I waited some 10 minutes with an increasingly deep frown as my puzzlement turned to frustration and then to rising irritation.

Clearly they had problems finding the case, so I volunteered the fact it was in late July 2012. Finally they found it and then commenced a highly animated talk among themselves. Attracted by the noise the station captain emerged, smiled a Bonjour to me and received a curt one in return.

He spoke to his seven-strong task-force and ascertained that I had signed a statement saying they had found my car a year ago. He promptly turned to me and said all was well.

There was no apology offered and there was no warmth in my departing au revoir.

The French are obsessed with paperwork, copies of this and that and I am sure if they insisted companies and organisations had to halve their printed matter next year, the national debt would be wiped clear.

This time their bureaucracy let them down. What did they think: it was a getaway car or that I had form driving a 1994 Honda Civic?

A disjointed start to the morning but the sun was still shining and the water in the pool was still shimmering nicely. But such indulgences would have to wait.

I still had the family shopping to undertake, while Ellie after staring open-mouthed as I told her four policeman had surrounded my parked car, set off with the aid of her crutch for the local pharmacy as part of her therapeutic constitutional.

She limped off, asking with a mock frown of concern: “You don’t know Freddie Foreman or Ronnie Biggs do you?”

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