La grève continues. And hardens. Tuesday night there was a fire in a depot at one of the main bus stations. 34 vehicles were damaged by what later proved to be arson. Meanwhile, the mayor of Lyon was moved to pronounce that the strike had gone on too long. Yesterday, 70% of services were reportedly running, but the strike retains enough support to seriously inconvenience most commuters. There are union meetings today to decide on the next move. On verra...
Given that my own commuting consists of twenty paces from bedroom to 'study' (a cause for minor regret on a day like today - the spell of warm, sunny weather continues), it's only going to the football where the strike causes problems. La bienheureuse is still walking to work, though yesterday she took the car, but that was because of a meeting in a hotel on the outskirts of town followed by a social evening learning about wine in the Beaujolais. Left at home alone, I contented myself with watching overpaid galacticos fluke a 3-0 win over les marseillais. The previous evening we hadn't needed to budge from the sofa as for once I got the chance to watch the glorious Gunners at home, in both senses. Domination brought eventual reward. Meanwhile, on the subscription channel we don't get OL were strolling in a Hungarian park.
Earlier on Tuesday evening we had a co-owners meeting in the apartment of one of our neighbours, which not uncharacteristically went on long enough to leave me sweating about dinner burning in the oven and missing the start of the big match. Typical meeting - lots of talking at high speed, most of it by two stereotypical French madames: nineteen words to the dozen, two dozen words used where half a dozen would have sufficed; atypical outcome - decisions were reached. Perhaps because we have a new neighbour who is unusually calm and decisive. And she doesn't talk too fast to understand.
The first concerned the syndic - the company charged with administering the building. Our own syndic is singularly inefficient, not to say inactive. For five years we've talking about changing, and finally we all agreed to do so. At least those present at the meeting did. And we still have to decide who to replace them with...
The main reason for the meeting however, was to discuss the rubbish bins. Yes, a subject of much concern, believe it or not. A lot of protocol is involved in the use of poubelles in French apartment blocks. Our particular bone of contention is with the restaurant that occupies the ground floor. According to building and city council rules, restaurants are required to make use of specialized outside companies to dispose of waste generated by the kitchen, rather than using the daily rubbish bin collections. Of course this costs money, and not surprisingly le resto downstairs prefers not to cough up and just uses the bins.
Our bins.
They do apparently have one normal rubbish bin, and one recycling bin allocated to them, but of course a busy kitchen generates much more detritus than two small wheelie bins can hold, and so they stuff all of our bins every day, leaving us poor inhabitants nowhere to dump our rubbish. Quelle horreur! Not only that, but their bin has a large crack in the bottom through which kitchen waste often leaks, leaving a smelly, slimey mess all over the floor, which then gets trailed out through the lobby when the bins are emptied.
Another thing about the restaurant that gets our neighbours' backs up is the noise at night. The restaurant often hosts parties of one sort and another, sometimes involving loud music, which keep our first floor neighbours in particular awake. Music they don't have a license for. All these issues (there's another, involving deliveries, which I won't go into), have at one time or another been taken up with the restaurant management by one of our neighbours or another, with varying degrees of politeness. Much is always promised, nothing is ever done. So, it was decided to send them a polite but firm letter, pointing listing all these points, pointing out all the rules, and informing them that if it's not taken, the next time we will be forced to have recourse to the law. On verra...
