Below My Bedroom Window

Crash, tinkle, boom, crash, tinkle boom, crash, tinkle, boom!!!  That is the sound of bottles crashing into the bottle bank at 7am this morning awaking me from my delicate slumber.  Mr. Jules jumped out of bed, rushed over to the window and took aim with an imagined shot gun.

“Kerpow!  I’m writing to the Commune, we’ll have to take a lawyer,”  he said pacing the room as I watched him bleary eyed from under the duvet.  His sudden rise in testosterone was phenomenal making him quite attractive if only I hadn’t started developing a headache… from all the noise. 

Before you think that we are over-reacting, let me inform you that this is the third or fourth brutal awakening this past ten days and on the holy of holiest 1st of August (Swiss national day) when bottle depositing is strictly interdit, I had to peer through the bushes in my bikini and “ask them nicely” to stop pointing to the large sign on the front of the bottle bank distinctly telling them when they can and can’t déposer les bouteilles.

The excuses given are risible ranging from the “I can’t stop I’m leaving for my holiday” (last year’s midnight bottle bank abuser) to shrugs and “only a few left” (would that be those few hundreds at your feet then?) 

Recently at the bottom of the village, on the way to the décheterrie (that’s recycling station to you and me),  a sleeping policeman (speed bump) disappeared, just like that, over night.  Where we would all slow down outside Madame Mimram’s grand driveway (the main contributor to the communal tax bucket) we now just continue along without the usual, quick gear change, up and over shenanigans.

 AND DO YOU KNOW WHY?

Because Monsieur Prelaz, who owns the farm opposite and whose bedroom looks out over the road and the offending speed bump, was continually awoken by the lights of the dipping headlights as cars kerthumped over the obstacle.  Aside from beefy Monsieur Prelaz’s lack of shut-eye, the tractor drivers, of which there are many in this village, are constantly looking for excuses to banish speed bumps and this was the last one standing…er…lying….no technically it would be sleeping.  You see their argument is that speed bumps tend to spoil all their fun – screeching at high speeds with massive loads being a major pastime around here.

When I heard of Mr. Prelaz’s ”bedtime story”, I knew there was hope for us.  Surely if Monsieur Prelaz – who obviously hasn’t heard of black out curtains or any curtains for that matter – can have a whole speed bump removed then I can get the bottle bank moved from below my bedroom window before Mr. Jules invests in a pair of binoculars, stops taking showers and dusts off his army rifle.