Last updated 13:26, Thursday, 03 July 2008

I BROKE new ground the other week by actually driving abroad.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t the first time I had taken the wheel of a motor vehicle on foreign soil.

Some 20 years ago, on the first-ever family trip aboard, I boldly took the wheel of a Fiat Umbriago, or some such piece of Italian exotica, in Minorca.

I had been driving at home for around 10 years without mishap, and reasoned that driving on the wrong side of the road would be a piece of paella.

It took less than 100 yards for me to realise that I had seriously over-estimated my motoring skills.

It was as though I had never sat behind a driving wheel in my entire life; I was trying to change gear with the handbrake, whilst expressing outrage at the frantic tooting of understandably annoyed mo-torists coming the other way with a feeble squirt from the windscreen washers.

After I attempted to drive the wrong way down a dual carriageway, I was sacked in shame by a unanimous family plebiscite.

Mrs Hextol took over the wheel, and it was my turn to shriek and cower, as to my way of thinking she went round roundabouts the wrong way, and overtook on the inside.

I never attempted to drive abroad again – until last month, when I drove over 200 miles in a day, without a hitch or a qualm.

Perhaps I should explain that my Mediterranean motoring was in Cyprus, where many years ago the locals took the eminently sensible decision to drive the way God intended – on the left.

Therefore I was completely unfazed by the roaring mopeds, and flocks of quad bikes and dune buggies which infest the roads of Aphrodite’s birthplace.

It helped that the car was some way past its sell-by date, despite the promise of the hire company that we would have a brand new car at our disposal.

The Japanese vehicle we were given certainly was new once, but may have had the name of Emperor Hirohito on the logbook.

It fairly drooped with age, and had barely enough power to pull the cork out of a bottle of ouzo, but we were in no hurry, and settled for it.

The only problem we had was not with the car, or the dodgy driver, but the feeding of the brute.

We pulled into a filling station, where I observed a Cypriot feed a 10 euro note into a slot beside the pump, which duly dispensed petrol at a price we can only dream of here.

As the tank was very low, I followed him with a 20 euro note, and confidently pressed the trigger – only for no fuel to emerge.

I pushed buttons hopefully, then angrily, and was busily kicking the pump when another ancient Cypriot drew up in an equally aged pick-up, eased me to one side, inserted his 20 euro note, and filled his tank with no problem.

Clearly realising there was something amiss by the way I was rending my hair and gnashing my teeth, the old boy pressed a few more buttons, and with a whirr the machine issued a piece of paper which offered a refund should I ever pass this way again.

When I opined this was highly unlikely, as we were half an island away from our hotel, he took me to the local taverna, where the garage owner was often to be found quaffing the odd ouzo.

About 16 games of backgammon involving men with mournful moustaches were interrupted as my new friend established, after much arm-waving and threatening gestures, that the garage man was not there – or in hiding – but he vouchsafed that any Petrolina station would refund my cash.

We stopped at the next four, all of which were similarly automated, and I was damned if I was going to risk more cash to a machine

Finally, we found one which was manned, but the owner made it clear through his Becher’s Brook of facial fungus that he held me personally responsible for the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and would sooner eat his own liver than give me a single cent.

The yellow petrol light was flashing before we found a manned petrol station from a rival company where the attendant filled the tank, and informed me the only way I would get my 20 euros back was by writing to the company headquarters.

What a rip-off!