We have been taking long walks around our village and came across some interesting things.
The first photo is of the klaxon. It sounds everyday at midday. I guess people need to know when it's lunch time... Apart from the cafes, everything closes between 12 and 2 pm. When we first moved here, this siren would go off regularly to alert the pompiers (firefighters) of any emergencies. We were told what the number of blasts were: One for midday, two for fire, three times for road accidents, I can't remember what four times meant and in the Alps and the Pyrenees, five times was for avalanche. Three years ago the pompiers were issued with pagers, so the siren goes off just once a day now. We live very near the fire station, and we can see them driving up the road like maniacs when there's an emergency, then we see their appropriate vehicles going down the road at the rate of knots.
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| The klaxon |
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| Detail |
The next thing that caught our eye the other day was what we think is a cell tower. Pallottine asked if something he saw in one of the photos of the village was a cell tower (which confused me, as we call them mobile masts). What Pallottine saw was an ordinary electricity post. This one sits much higher on the hill and looks different from the normal posts.
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| Cell tower? |
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| Detail |
Finally, we found this hobbit structure in the middle of the woods. Peter reckons it's a water pumping thingie. It has a vent on the top. I looked for any signs on the door, but there was nothing. We concluded it's not anything to do with electricity and high voltage, as they always put signs warning of "danger de mort." Danger of death!
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| What could this be? |
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| Detail of the vent |
I'm preparing a post with some nice photos and some of the history of the village, but I thought the pictures above were intriguing and didn't want to mix the subjects...
