Today we had a little mission that Troy wanted to tackle. His Great Uncle Lester (Dad's dad's brother if that makes sense!) was a Navigator on Lancaster Bombers during World War 2 and was shot down over a little place called Saint-Ouen-Domprot, East of Paris. When their aircraft crashed, the locals recovered the bodies and laid him and four of his crew to rest in the local churchyard. Our plan was to drive a hire car to Saint-Ouen-Domprot to see the church and their gravestones. So it was up at 6:30, shower, breaky, train and standing in the snow at the hire car place by 8…

We weren't off to a great start from the beginning, with Case trying to get into the passengers seat at the left door of the left hand drive car. Then checking the satnav was going to work revealed that it wasn't charging as the cigarette lighter was broken, so into car number two it was. Thank god we checked as we'd probably be lost and divorced by now if we hadn't!

Satnav now working, we ventured out onto the street… the best way to describe driving a left hand drive manual Astra in the middle of Paris while it's snowing is probably to say it's 'sporting'. I think both Case and I both had our eyes closed at some stages! But we made it onto the motorway unscathed and appeared to be heading in the right direction. Our first stop was at a servo for a pit stop and a double hotdog, before watching Case try to get in the left door again!

Driving into Saint-Ouen-Domprot some 3 hours later, it was a little like a ghost town. Most of the buildings looked lived in but not really maintained. The poor old church was even worse off, looking like it hadn't been used in some time. A 'Commonwealth War Graves' sign on the entrance gate gave us some hope we were in the right place and after a little hunting we found 3 neat little headstones in the cemetery. We got some good photos of the headstones and the churchyard (not sure if Dad knows of anyone who might be interested in a copy?) before turning back to retrace our footsteps to Paris.

The drive back was thankfully equally uneventful, and after a brief stop for a great lunch in a random little French town, we had the hire car back without a dent and not too many swear words been directed at the local French maniacs. I mean drivers…

Now it's sitting in the laundromat writing this while we wait for our 'smalls' to finish spinning, then dinner and bed in preparation for a big day of travel tomorrow.