Aaron Scoones outside Rouen Cathedral. One of the challenges was to be photographed with it. (Picture by Nick Mann)

Saturday, 27/09, 22.15, Novotel Hotel, Rouen

UNFORTUNATELY we never got round to dressing up Allo Allo style or obtaining any French people for the evening as it us took four and half hours to get to Rouen from St Malo when it was only supposed to take three hours.

The reason it took us so long was because we took a wrong turn out of St Malo and ended up in Dinan.

The whole thing with all the faffing about put around 30kms on our journey.

Added to the fact that we took another unscheduled detour near Caen and then we could not find the hotel when we arrived in Rouen, there was no time for the peripheries.

But here we are now, sat in the hotel bar on the outskirts of the town and that’s the main thing.

There are a few that have not been so lucky…

At the minute things are a bit hazy due to a lack of news from the field combined with the fizzy French beer being consumed.

But as far as I understand three vehicles have seriously broken down and are beyond repair.

First up is Jon Robilliard and Sadie Abbotts’ Penelope Pit Stop Rover 620 which blew a head casket outside Caen.

Their car is now at a garage heading for the crushers so they’ve had to grab a taxi to the hotel, which cost them EUR250.

By all accounts Ben Jones’ Team 18 have had a clutch failure and are missing in action, a cam belt has gone on a Vauxhall Omega leaving its driver and navigator immovable and the water pump went on Ben Lowndes’ BMW when he was going… well I won’t say how fast he was going.

They are all now going to jump in other cars.

Plus another car ended up in Rennes, at least two more vehicles are missing and one BMW team got stopped by the police well over the speed limit.

But they got away with it when they showed the police officer a printed statement explaining that they were on the Bubblegum Bangers Rally and that it was all in a good cause.

Again, hard facts are a bit difficult to come by at the moment…