LOL!!!!! . Take a picture and post it. I know of another hamlet called Weir. Every few years, someone spray-paints a "d" onto the end of the name on the road sign. No one rushes to scrub it off, either, as the population is so low and I expect they've become accustomed to it. Very nice people in that hamlet, by the way.
:-D
There is a hamlet not so far away called pont de vicq. It is at the end of a bridge that runs into a road left and right, thus a T-junction. There have been so many accidents, that ages ago somebody sprayed 'tim' over the 'q' although quite squashed in. Thus it reads Pont de Victim as one comes off the bridge.
One of my sisters lives in a small village that would like to separate from the rest of the country. The motto that appeared on all the public signs for many years was: (name of village): Un monde à part. And it was indeed a world apart, in many ways (rolling of eyes). There must have been a number of complaints over the years, and as they are a major tourist destination in their region, the motto has since been altered to: Un monde à part, et à partager. Much friendlier ;-)
Aha! So was it you who crept about the village measuring car park spaces and tree limbs to report to the mairie? :-D
No, that gathering was more or less based on our various children being friends and that was the adult bit of a children's party (where there is alcohol and leftovers), as it so often is. There is an element of Machiavelli at all of these occasions. We tend to be the only foreigners but also both social scientists so do 'fieldwork' whilst at it and do tend to have 'wonder why or what' discussions about various people after. But then everybody does it about each other as we know from when we are not a crowd. Gossip makes the world go round, sometimes so fast you can get dizzy.
However, since we are what we are, people must imagine we know how to resolve things, which we normally cannot, so we get to hear and extraordinary number of things. I have always said that if I ever took up writing fiction I would simply have to compile lots of things I have heard, change a few names and places and write it as humour.
Your comments reminded me of an occasion last winter I went out on the brightest moonlit night that I had ever experienced to take some long exposure photos of my commune. I dreaded being seen and having to explain my actions but luckily all the neighbours were fast asleep behind closed shutters. The especially bred guard dog on the farm next door slept through it all as well.
Brian, how do all your neighbours manage when they gather together for an apéro? They've all got secrets and plots and complaints and grievances against one another. How do they keep quiet and not get into disputes when they've had a few too many drinks?
There are people in the country and in the city who either don't have enough to do or simply enjoy being arses. It isn't restricted to France either, it happens in the UK as well and I can think of foreigners here too, who seem to have no other joy in life other than curtain twitching & complaining to the Mairie etc about their neighbours.
Yes of course, it would be impossible to remain anonymous in a rural area. Unless one starts sneaking around in the dark in a black hooded suit with night-vision goggles and an infra-red camera, hoping the neighbour's hunting dogs aren't on the prowl.
Well, Lalinde where our friends are just ceasing to live is neither fish nor foul. A tiny town that imagines it has the attributes of a city with people who imagine they are omnipotent. Our friends are outsiders (come from over 20km away!) so often get it in the neck. Rural and small town harmony is a bit like a choir singing together, none of its members ever having met before but thinking it is all the most perfect sound in the world. Bah, humbug.
Baking pies. Sometimes more like throwing them at each other. Mostly great though, never anonymous even if you want.
Thanks for sharing that cautionary tale, Brian. I naively thought that this business of petty (and anonymous) complaints was a city phenomenon, brought on by the stress of many people living in close quarters, and that in the countryside everyone was busy baking pies to offer their neighbours and building barns together.
It happens to French people too. Friends cut back some branches of a tree overhanging their garden. Since it appeared to be growing on the verge of the road they imagined it was owned by the commune, so nobody would mind. Indeed they are entitled to cut back what hangs over their garden anyway. Unbeknown to them their neighbour photographed the damage to the tree which they own since, by chance, the cadastral plan shows a small triangle at the end of their drive on which the tree stands. So they complained. No action. Next spring the tree began, it seems, to have grown excessively on the drive side so that branches being heavier hung down lower than usual, thus touched their cars going in and out. Some scratches, which our friends said looked like typical supermarket trolley scrapes, appeared. More photographs taken. Off to the mairie. A while later somebody from the local communauté de communes turned up to examine the tree which how they found out what was happening.
In time they received a letter saying the commune was recommending they hire a tree surgeon to do some kind of remedial work on the tree. They laughed, saying to themselves the neighbour could simply cut back the branches. But no, since they are tenants they should have sought the permission of the owner who would have negotiated permission to have work done on the tree by professionals. They had lived in the house about 15 years, had cut the tree back before, never anything like this in the past. Oh yes? When they went into dispute over it, it emerged that years back whilst they lived in Bergerac they had twice had disputes with neighbours because they had parked their car in such a way that it was tight for the people to turn into the road. The police municipale had been called out on both occasions, the council had written them letters to demand it did not happen again each time.
That was on their 'record' so that when they disputed the tree thing they were shown to be some kind of habitual arguers who would not accept decisions from higher authority.
They are at present negotiating buying a house with no adjoining neighbours, no parking issues and no reason they can anticipate why they will be jumped on for their past which is hardly any kind of civil disobedience even. When a bunch of us were discussing it, it emerged that there are serial complainers who wait for just about any opportunity which might be, as one person contrived an example, their neighbours to sneeze twice so that they can be accused of starting an epidemic. I think that from a dozen couples and a few others alone, so let's say people from something like 16 households, there were more examples than one would imagine of trivial matters that escalated into near war conditions. I did though find it slightly surprising that nobody let on that any of them had ever started such a conflict given that there were two couples who are capable of taking on nature if the wind blows the wrong way.
Yes, we have got close to conflict. That was over a ruin that was get all the more dangerous but the owner doing nothing about it. Once the commune decided it was a hazard when large stones blocked the road partially and with construction nearby large trucks were causing deterioration the owner had to climb down and have it razed to the ground. He has even sold us a piece of land on our side of the road in order to appear the nice guy, albeit it overpriced still but the best on on offer. However, we genuinely felt complaining about a ruin that 100kg plus stones were falling out of dodgy enough to justifiably complain about. Yes, Véro, the ruin is gone! Now we have to find a new landmark to explain to visitors/delivery people which house to look for.
Aw Véronique, that would spoil all the fun of speculating. I'm sure there's a rule somewhere about this somewhere in my lease, between page 45 and page 145 perhaps, but it will take some time to find it.
What do the rules of the copropriété say?