By the time we got back
to the hotel I felt physically tired although I was surprised to find myself
mentally still quite alert (as alert as I ever am!). I indulged
in what I've always considered to be one of the greatest of the post Le Mans
pleasures, the after race shower - probably the most welcome shower of the
year! Then I cranked up the TV in my room and started to watch the Canadian
Grand Prix. I remembered watching the start and the next few laps but the
next thing I knew they were on lap 21! The drift into exhaustion had clearly
begun...
I had to put a stop to
it there as the weekend still had one more "event" to go - the evening meal
which James had booked at Le Belinois, an old Tourists haunt of
course, last visited (very) late on the Friday night in 2009. What's more,
we had a guest as not only was Tony joining us, but also Paul Truswell,
fresh from the commentary box (well actually, probably fresher than any of
us!). So we made our rendezvous with Paul at Le Belinois at 7.30
where I remedied another 2010 deficiency with foie gras, followed by
delicious monkfish and a rather sensational Belinois special dessert. A
fantastic meal enjoyed with discussion about the race, with (a very tired)
Paul still able to keep us entertained with his mixture of gossip, insight
and humour. This was definitely a meal for Le Mans anoraks, and I was very
happy to count myself as one of those.
We said our farewells to
Paul around 10 pm and headed back to the hotel to our beds for the
hardest-earned sleep of 2010, particularly for Tony who had to be up at some
outlandish hour to be on the road to catch his morning ferry.
Having had a good
night's sleep there was no huge rush for James and I the following (Monday)
morning. By the time we were up and about at around 9.15, Tony was well on
the way to his ferry (if not already on it), and we took our time packing up
and loading James's car for the journey back to Le Havre. We left our
splendid little hotel (which deliberately remains anonymous here - so don't
ask!), at about 10.15 but before we hit the road, we decided to play one
last visit to "our" bar at St Saturnin for a last cup of that superb coffee!
But we were soon on the
road away from Le Mans, reversing the journey we made eight days previously.
A week is a long time (as Jayne reminded me regularly during it!) but to me,
perhaps inevitably, it had absolutely flown by. We had decided sometime
earlier to stop in Honfleur for lunch. This very picturesque little port had
been a regular haunt for the Tourists some years ago, on the way to Le Mans
or sometimes on the way back, although it was 10 years now since I was last
there with them in 2000. We arrived at about 1.50 and parked up and then
checked out the menus of the many restaurants that run along the sides of
the harbour, eventually settling on one which seemed to offer a decent
choice. After seemingly annoying the staff by wanting to eat outside - such
an outlandish request (!), We both had an excellent starter of mussels in a
cream sauce which I then followed by fish that was so disappointingly bland
that I've since completely forgotten what it was...
After another coffee and
a brief walk around, we returned to the car at about 4 pm for the relatively
short drive to Le Havre where we hoped to experience again a quick crossing
on the Fast Cat which was due to leave at 6.30, French time. Once on board
we managed to get ourselves a table near one of the bars at the front of the
boat, but our departure was delayed by about 20 minutes. It wasn't the
greatest of journeys, at one point the captain telling the passengers that
he had been forced to slow the boat down due to the state of the sea! But it
wasn't really all that rough...
We finally made it to
Portsmouth at 9.30 (English time), some 45 minutes late, but unfortunately
that delay paled into insignificance as we waited for what seemed an
eternity to leave the boat and then get through customs, finally getting to
where my son (also James), had been waiting for a very long time to pick me
up at 11 pm.
So there it is;
Aysedasi's story of the 2010 trip to Le Mans. An absolutely brilliant
experience which lived up entirely to all of my expectations and far more.
For that I have to thank James, both for his organisation of the trip and
his thoroughly excellent company throughout. The highlights? Well, being in
France actually at Le Mans for a full eight days for starters;
watching not only 23 hours or thereabouts of the race but also a full 10
hours of practice; the visit to Drayson racing; our wonderful meal at Le
Belinois - all marvellous. But the real highlight for me was the visit to
the Radio Le Mans studio with Paul on Friday afternoon, from where I
could happily have surveyed the scene for hours and hours - with or without
any cars on the track! And next? Well it doesn't take much guessing
that I'm hoping to do much the same thing again next year - roll on 2011!
Post script
This was my 25th visit
to Le Mans, a fact which didn't go unnoticed by my Ten Tenths friend
Pascal (PascaLM). At the Ten Tenths meeting on Saturday he kindly presented
me with a delightful memento of the occasion - in the form of four
photographs from the 1986 event out of his own collection. I have reproduced
those photographs here. Thank you Pascal!
