The Bells! The Bells!

 Molly Ritter

The bells of the clock tower are completely out of synch.  They have decided, in a very belligerent manner, that they will chime whatever takes their fancy, as long as it is not the appointed hour.  Ten chimes at six this morning, three at eleven last night.  The only ones they get right are the half hour little “ding!” and the 12 noon cacophonous call in from the fields for lunch.  How quaint you are all thinking! 

Between midnight and six they are usually muffled in tone, as if someone – probably the farmer who lives next door – rushes up there with a bit of sheep’s wool he keeps in his pocket for such occasions and wraps it round the bit that dings the bell (what IS that called?)  Then at one minute to six (am), (he’s retired he has nothing better to do but wake up us lazy expatriates who live within a 10km radius) he rushes back up there and whips it off so the jarring cacophony starts all over again.

After three days of me wondering whether I am going mad or the only one REALLY listening, I call up Madame Clot in the Commune Office.  I don’t bother to look up the official opening times as Mme Clot is always in her little garret office at the top of the creeky stairs.  Either, I have magically over the years been calling on the very two days that she works part-time, or she lives under her desk.  Anyway, I like Mme Clot she always laughs at my passport photo and doesn’t get cross or patronizing when I fumble with all the endless official papers that are part of life in Switzerland and more importantly she likes ME.  UNLIKE I ADD, the Mayoress who dislikes me intensely as I organise a halloween party for the kids each year which she has been trying to ban ever since she came into office.  (She hides and turns the lights out when the kids go to her house….how mean is that?)

This is how the conversation proceeded:

“Mme Clot! Mme Clot! Les cloches!” (Madame Clot, the bells! the bells!)

“Ah…..oui….chuckle chuckle Je sais”. (Oh yes, I know, ha ha) – see a kindred spirit!!!

“Qu’est-ce qu’on peut faire?” (What’s to be done?)

“C’est difficile…M. Oberson est à la retraite…il faut attendre un professionel de Lausanne …mais c’est difficile vous savez c’est la semaine de Paleo.” (Well, it’s not easy.  Mr. Oberson is now retired…we’ll have to wait for Lausanne to send a professional…it is Paleo week you know).

Silly ‘ol me.  It’s Paleo week.  When our local pop festival is on everything and everyone stops.  They (the Swiss!) party all night, take siestas and for one week don’t give two hoots about the bells, to whose sound they are congenitally immune, or the disturbance of my random neural firings (my thought patterns) whilst working.  So it’s ear plugs for me.

PS Sophie-G has taken the camera off to Spain so here’a a random shot of the dog.

Copyright Julesritter July 2008