Le pont

Back on subject again. Yesterday the second floor slab was poured. The electricity conduits and central heating network were integrated into the structure so we had the pleasure of the first visit from The Plumber. Activity is intense as opportunities to work in May are few and far between. This year the bank holidays, which in France, unlike the UK, are not conveniently magnetised to the nearest Monday, fall on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And there are a lot of them. Wars, religious happenings and workers spring rites are all celebrated in the month of May. This gives rise to the traditional spring pass time known as faire le pont. Simply translated this means bridging between weekends and bank holidays using a judiciously placed day off work to give yourself an extremely long weekend. The Builder, who confides in me that all this means he is loosing even more money on the job, has an apposite comment on the subject:

'Sarko's going to change all that. Soon, there will be no more ponts for the French'.

I'm pretty sure he was joking. What is true, is that everyone has their own very particular idea of what the next 5 years has in store.