30th September, Bonnes Idées Françaises Sanglantes # 2

I was rather hoping to be blogging on a completely different topic today - the start of our adventure of a couple of days into the Alpes but, alas no. Car packing was half complete this morning when the driver's side front tyre was noticed to be quite flat and in need of a self tapper screw removal, plugging and reinflation. Changing over to the  "space saver" spare wheel, determining that our house exchanger's "garagist" was open - he answered the phone, but we could not communicate with each other, driving the 5 kms to the next village where he is located without knowing that he could or would fix it there and then, we decided to postpone our adventure to the Alpes a day and rebooked the hotel for tomorrow.
The "garagist" was most obliging though, and set straight to work. 20 minutes later he had refitted the wheel and we were away, but not to the Alpes.

Today's blog though is the second in the series "Bonnes Idées Françaises Sanglantes"

Sanglante Bonne Idée Française # 2 - "Feux de signalisation de travaux routiers"

How frustrating it can be when you are stopped at a set of automatic roadwork traffic lights with not a soul in sight and no traffic coming in the opposite direction and, no idea how much longer you will be twiddling your thumbs for. The French do because their "feux de signalisation de travaux routiers" (roadwork traffic lights) tell you precisely how much thumb twiddling time is available.

Precisely 31 seconds to twiddle