Idiosyncrasies

Small Talk
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Had to laugh today. Found ourselves at the “eau de source” in Alet les Bains late this afternoon. Along with the peeps cooling off in the washouse pool after a lovely hot day there was a continual stream (no pun intended) of peeps filling all variety of containers with water from the continuously flowing eau de source. Whilst peeps watching my eye was drawn to the poster above the flowing fonts & in particular the times & nature of the items that can be washed in the public sinks provided . Had to smile at the thought (assuming my translation is correct) that you can only bring your blanket, carpet or curtains for a wash on Mondays or Fridays at 10am. Gracious - what am I going to do for the rest of the week?:see_no_evil:

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Not quite - Mondays to Fridays up to 10am.

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Wasn’t expecting a French lesson :grimacing: . I posted it as just a bit of fun :triumph:. I was reading it from quite a distance - if you noticed , the pic is a bit blurry as I’d zoomed in :see_no_evil:. Close up I can see it’s au & jusqu’à .

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I am reliably informed that …within living memory…our locals took their bedding stuff down to the river to wash them when Spring came… seems they did not wash them at all in the Winter… :upside_down_face:

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Lol. Seems that happens in the U.K. too Stella. Not sure how we got onto the subject of laundry at work but I recall one day we were discussing how often we changed our bedlinen. Fitted sheets and duvets were a fairly recent innovation at the time - remember them being called Continental Quilts :joy:. Anyhow , there was one young man who for rather tragic reasons lived on his own in an out of the way village. He always looked a bit disheveled and his shirts were sometimes a bit grubby & usually unironed but we’d put that down to his lifestyle & having to get up early to drive the long distance to work. When the washing of duvet covers was raised most folk said they washed theirs every week , some said they flipped theirs and washed them every two weeks as they used a draw sheet under it. The young man was very quiet throughout this and we all turned to him for his answer . He said he hadn’t realised the cover was supposed to be washed and hadn’t done so since he’d bought it - over a year ago…,:see_no_evil:

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Oh :open_mouth:! And no such thing as privacy for smalls either in our village. There is a house - on the main road, which we also live on, which always has laundry drying on an airer outside the front of the house . Literally on what passes for a pavement . Usually bedlinen , duvets but often the week’s laundry. I presume they have no courtyard or garden to put it in and the sun comes up onto the front of their row of houses so it’s the only spot they have for drying clothes.

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Ha ha… I was reprimanded for drying my smalls on the whirly in my little patch…(by my neighbour from Hell :roll_eyes:)… because we live opposite the church… and my smalls were deemed by him to be “unsuitable”

I checked at the Mairie… and they collapsed into laughter… “are your smalls clean?”… was their response… :laughing::wink: which left me wondering who hangs out dirty laundry… :thinking::zipper_mouth_face::roll_eyes:

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No sign for Mother Dear?

Have you any dirty washing mother dear?

_Etendage du Linge Sale à la Ligne Siegfried :v:(634km)" _

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Sorry - you did say “assuming my translation is correct” which seemed to invite correction.

Not that my French is anything to crow about.

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Apology accepted & thank you but I wasn’t inviting assistance just being my usual flip self​:rofl::rofl::rofl: . I’m by no means fluent but I can usually read better than I can follow spoken French - especially here where it’s spoken really fast with quite a strong accent. I’d read the poster really quickly and from quite a distance then zoomed in to snap it as I didn’t want to appear intrusive to the people going about their business filling their water containers but didn’t read it through again. There was another sign saying the water wasn’t analysed or tested which put me off a bit from drinking it despite it being a warm day . I guess the fact that people had their feet & in fact their whole bodies in the other section didn’t help make it appealing either :flushed:. Didn’t seem to be putting everyone else off from drinking it or filling large containers and bottles with it though. :blush:

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[quote="Essexness, post:10, topic:22571, full:true] I guess the fact that people had their feet & in fact their whole bodies in the other section didn’t help make it appealing either :flushed:. Didn’t seem to be putting everyone else off from drinking it or filling large containers and bottles with it though. :blush:
[/quote]

And it’s a fair bet that most drinking water has passed through countless bodies across countless millennia before it touches your/my/everyone’s lily-like lips, Vanessa, and squelched through miles/kilometres of égouts too. C’est la vie ! :grin: