Bulk trash day

Today was Hautrage's pickup day for les encombrants, all those bulky trash items you can't fit into your flimsy little commune-required plastic trash bag, like sinks, couches, old containers and so on. As we walked one of our usual routes through and around town last evening, we noticed a large flat-bed truck full of junk coming down the street and wondered whether the commune was already picking up trash. Then we saw another truck cruising. And then we saw a car from France - one of those 59ers who live right across the border and clog our local roads - whose occupants jumped out with flashlights (because by this time it was dusk) to examine the pile of trash outside someone's house to see what was worth taking. This is like right outside the house - because it was one of those houses with only aa three-foot sidewalk separating it from the road. Pretty cheeky.

Oh, our pile was still there in the morning. Nobody wanted our dead bicycle tires or broken pizza stone. Next year we'll have to come up with something better for the scavengers.