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See the collection of photos from the Tour de France in Tenterden, in GL’s photo album.

Tenterden, Kent - Sunday was a confusing day in Tenterden, Kent, for those of us who had just crossed the Channel from France after leaving Switzerland.

You might have thought you were in France, given the French flags, cars zooming down the main street with loudspeakers bellowing televsion advertisements in French for soap powder and Haribo sweets.

You blinked and blue-clad men on Gendarmerie motorcycles were flying by. A

Look again and you saw police officers in what were clearly British tall hats, tatooed men and women in floral prints raising pints of beer and ale, white-skinned women and children in sleeveless tops and vinegar-flavoured crisps and sticky cakes and sweets in colours that make the French shudder.

Definitely Britain.

The event was the Tour de France, which kicked off this year in London and ended in Canterbury. Villages in Kent gave themselves up to the race, embracing the Tour and all things French with an enthusiasm that reminded everyone that the Channel

still divides the two nations, despite the tunnel, ferries and EasyJet.

The Tour got in everyone’s way, with roads blocked and police stopping people from crossing main streets for three hours in the middle of the day. The noise level was well above a normal Sunday buzz. The only solution

was to turn out to watch the race even though it meant juggling real live sports with TV ones that included Wimbledon finals and the British Grand Prix.

We were here to see relatives, not the Tour, but as freshly arrived tourists from Switzerland we joined the crowds lining the road and cheered the home colours. Swiss Fabian Cancellara was wearing the yellow jersey for the first day, which gave us a team to cheer for, even though some of us could not have told you much more about the race, its riders, its history.

"Do you know who the favourite is?" I asked a woman in her sixties, who was very worried she would not be able to snap the winner with her small camera.

"I have no idea," and she looked at me in astonishment. "I don’t know anything about who’s riding! But it doesn’t matter, does it."

Britain in general was in a festive mood Sunday, with the sun shining after days of cold, wet weather that are unusual in July, even for this part of the world, maligned for its reputation for rain. Tenterden is a quintessentially English town, which ranks very high in terms of charm, historical interest, shopping and general fun. But the Tour provided a new kind of activity and residents and visitors poured outside shortly before noon, when the barricades would close the road.

"I can’t cross!" a young woman behind us shouted, upset. Everyone looked at her and she threw up her hands. "I have to be at work, over there," and she pointed to a restaurant. Fellow waiters and waitresses and the chef, all of them on the sidewalk across from us, to watch the race, laughed and shouted at her not to worry. Who would be ordering food? Everyone was eating ice cream because, for a change, it was warm enough to do so.

In fact, business was booming for the pubs and anyone who sold ice cream or crisps. Webb’s legendary hardware store, whose narrow aisles are usually hard to maneuver, was remarkably empty, but it wasn’t for lack of business. People were rushing in and out, not wanting to lose their places on the street.

"I’ve sold over 100 chairs this morning," Nigel Webb grinned. Green folding chairs from Webbs were indeeded easy to spot on the sidewalk. Bright purple and yellow and green plastic pails also flew out his door, just the thing for small children to stand on. A few doors down, in front of Webbs Housewares shop his wife, dressed in red and white stripes with bright red shoes, was dressed to match the French shop windows done specially for the occasion.

Nothing happened for a very long time, but no one seemed to mind, including hundreds of children.

A sudden roar of French motorcycles signalled the start of the Tour but forget the bicycle race: this was the popular promotional parade with sponsors’ crazily dressed-up cars and vans. People cheered heartily for no reason except to alleviate the boredom of waiting and in hope of catching one of the free samples they threw to the crowd. Soap, balloons, sweets, pool toys – we all reached up to catch the Tour advertising missiles.

Helicopters droned overhead suddenly. A rash of motorcycles pulled up to the sprint finish line and men with untidy shapes and leather jackets leaped off and ran to their positions.

"Nooooo!" groaned the crowd loudly, as amateur photographers’ choice spots were suddenly blocked by the paparazzi and photographers from L’Equipe, France’s sports newspaper. Cigarettes dangling, motors running, walkie-talkies loudly barking in French, they ignored the crowd.

"Five minutes!" someone on the sidewalk shouted, having just been messaged on his cell phone by a buddy in the next town. Five minutes, five min  . . . went the buzz, moving down the sidewalk towards the pub. Then it was one, and then -

A roar came from the crowd followed by a whoosh from a small number of bicycle wheels and the official race vehicles blasting on their horns s they rushed by.

"That’s it, then," said the woman who was worried about her camera shots. "I think I have him, I think I did get the winner," she announced to her neighbours. "He was the one in yellow, right?"

The crowd suddenly roared again: the peloton, that mass of wheels with human bodies in the middle, flew by us. Arms held out cameras, hoping they were shooting something that could be identified later, children standing on bright pails from Webbs cheered wildly, grandmothers got up from their chairs.

Within five minutes the banners were down, the barricades were being dismantled and suncream gave way to post-sunburn creams for the many pink arms and necks. A yellow jersey – hooray for the Swiss!! – had been the first rider past and we learned later that our man kept the yellow jersey for having the fastest overall time. Australian McEwen sprinted to victory for the day.

And then it was all over, a five-minute flash of sports fame in front of us, en route to France. People headed home to baguettes, soft cheese and champagne because this was, after all, a day for loving all things French.

Later, we read about complaints that some teams wear yellow, confusing people who think they are seeing the fastest rider, the one who sports the special yellow jersey for the day.