Non! Non! Non!

Today there was a general strike. There have been a couple over the summer but to be honest we haven't really noticed. It's a bit hard to come to grips with normal working French hours never mind when they are being 'difficult'. For instance, the entire country closes down and goes on holiday for the month of August. Want a restaurant? Sorry, 'Ferme'. Hungry foreign tourists wander through deserted towns across the country gazing forlornly at scrawled messages taped in dusty windows announcing the proprietors are off on their 'vacances' and see you in a month or so. Well, no you won't. We'll all have gone home by then. 'So what' shrugs the French proprietor - ah! the Gallic shrug. It's a pretty useful gesture. I've been practising. If it's not August and thus normal working hours then everything shuts down at mid day - on the dot (some places there's even a siren) - and everyone goes to lunch. Now, there's a bit of variation here, lock keepers generally get back on duty at 1 or 1.30 but shops often stay shut until 3 or 4pm. Unless it's Sunday, when they don't open at all, or Monday when they most likely won't open- but they might open for a bit in the afternoon. Depends.

So, today a lot of the lock keepers seemed to be 'missing'. Result was that some poor student on a holiday job had to work 3 or 4 locks. I can see a flaw in this. If a poorly paid student can manage to keep things going whilst the old guys are off on strike....