I did my second large batch of hand washing last night, once again it rained overnight, an once again the clothes horse collapsed in the mud rendering my hard work meaningless. If this clothes horse was a real horse, it would fall at the first fence every time before someone took mercy on it and shot it in the paddock. Being a damp start to the morning we decided to set off to the quaint town of St Jean Pied Du Port about 30 miles away inland on the road to Spain. This beautiful town retains all its original characteristics (Apart from the quintessential LIDL store in its centre) and you can marvel at how the locals carry the ancient local craft of open wallet surgery on unsuspecting tourists. A must for any visitor to this town is to view from the bell tower at the top of the hill the throngs of bewildered tourists trying to come to terms with how they have just parted with six euros for a can of Fanta.

The boys and I decided to have lunch in a small bar on the edge of town named Le Petite Thieving Bastard, where we were greeted by two ladies on their last shift before heading to Bejing as favourites for gold in the coveted “The Poor Mannered Waitress” event. I for one certainly wouldn’t back against them, but what really impressed me was how they could fit so many flies in such a small establishment, it was if though they owned the fly breeding rights for the entire town, perhaps they did! I was desperate for a pee but the lavatory door resembled something from a horror movie, and I was not keen to discover what was behind it. But I was really desperate, so I entered to discover a hole in the ground which had been missed on more than one occasion since it had last been cleaned in 1948.

I emerged choking back the vomit, my sun tan now fading to slate grey, and tucked nervously in to our lunch of “Jambon Du Bayon baguette et frites avec le petite Bleu Bottieulle” which if I am honest apart from the flies, was quite edible (I calculated that is what we would all have, as frankly it was hard to screw up three ham baguettes and chips). I then gifted the waitress with my life savings before heading off to book us all in for Cholera and Typhoid injections at the local surgery.

I arrived back at base to find that the Animal Sex brigade had not been discouraged by my lack of reply to Extreme Cat Rape, and were now attempting to tickle my fancy with “Woman F-cked By Horse.” Quite why they think I would like to watch a woman having sex with Celine Dion I just don’t know! Maybe they overheard me this morning when I shouted “This horse is f-cked” as I picked my washing out of the mud, and thought I was a potential client!