It’s great to be in Le Mans before the 24 Hours race starts. Tomorrow is qualifying and our first day visiting the track. In the meantime, Le Mans is a really interesting place even without the prospect of the race. It’s a Roman city, with the third most intact Roman city wall left in the world (after Rome and Istanbul), with a Plantagenet history and mediaeval old town, and a new and growing town around it. We went to one of the town museums today and learned a lot about the history and some of the local crafts – there is a strong pottery tradition, and is also seemingly the French centre for making Rillettes, a shredded pork and pork fat pate. If you’ve never had Rillettes . . . you’ll probably live a healthier life than me, as it’s a more fat than pig sometimes, but my word, it is goooood. And there is a lot of it here. I’m very happy.

After a bit of a late arrival yesterday – oddly, central France is experiencing more than average rainfall for this time of year, so trains were unexpectedly disrupted – the lovely gite owner met us here, and showed us our home for the week. Our temporary home used to be her family home, until she down-sized a few years ago and kept this place on as a holiday home. It’s really interesting to be in a house with a history – the 70s and 80s fittings tell a story of their own.

Not a great deal to share at the moment but I thought I’d share so far and tell you – I’m excited to see some cars on track tomorrow!