Skip

     

          Working here on my my own has its disadvantages. Aside from the obvious ones such as doing all the labouring, mixing mortar, wheelbarrowing it through to me etc, its putting up scaffolds on your own and passing things up to me when i'm  pointing old stone walls up. For instance, on friday I had knocked out an old stone doorway that had been blocked up for whatever reason a few years ago with concrete blocks and it took me a while to fill up the trailer ready for the tip. Needing a baguette for lunch which I could get from the village boulangerie where the tip was, I pushed on as they close at twelve. It is only about five miles to the village, but I had to take it easy as the trailer was heavy and I was driving the car as the old van didn't possess a toe bar. The Council tips in France are good, and the one here is no exception. Swinging in the gate, I gave a few extra revs and pull up the slope that leaves you above the skip so that you can just drop your rubbish into it. Finishing level with the one that is specially designed for rubble, I got out and after handballing a few bits of the heavier lumps, decided to un hitch the trailer and just tip it in. Just then an old chap wearing a beret pulled alongside me and after a smiling bonjour, began emptying a pruned laural bush into the gardening waste skip opposite. After hitching back up, I got back in and to my dismay, and without any warning, I turned the key and all I got was a click. The battery was dead. Hearing the old chap say something, I got out and shrugged my shoulders in a galic manner which speaks for many things here and he replied with one of his own. My french, although still on the amateur level, was good enough to understand his solution. I was to get in whilst he pushed me the couple of metres to the edge of the slope to jump start it as it went down. I had two qualms. The first was that if it didn't start, the steering and brakes were as good as useless and a turn was required at the bottom of the slope to avoid going through the hedge and into someones garden at the bottom. The other was that being a big car, the old chap would not be able to push it, judging from how he was struggling with the branches of the bush.  But he was insistent, and putting his shoulder against the back, bade me to get inside. Turning the key and putting it into second gear, I must admit I felt a little anxious looking at the hedge down below, that looked closer the more I looked at it. But incredibly, I felt a shove with what sounded like a war cry and we were off. The engine burst into life halfway down the slope and I swerved round to the left as I heard a great hollering sound and looking in the mirror, saw the old chap come running down the slope waving his arms. Leaping at my open window and throwing his arm in, he suddenly stopped, and stared in relieved disbelief that I was sitting behind the steering wheel. After pushing me over the edge, he had looked up to see me sitting to him, inconprehensibly in the right seat headed towards the hedge. Roaring with laughter, I couldn't understand, but could tell from his gestures that he thought he had sent this Englishman to his fate in the hedge. Of course, he was not to know that I had changed the numberplate to a french one but was still right hand drive. We parted still laughing, my smile leaving me when nearly home whn I realised that I would have to buy a new battery the next day.