JO JO CAME TODAY letters from France originally written in 2011

JO JO CAME TODAY

... letters from France, written in 2011

We have been promising ourselves that we should have Jo-Jo come round and empty our old septic tank. It is rather a fosse and somewhat different to the proper tank that many readers will have experience of in their back garden.

This relic was installed when our house was new and built for M. Fresneau ‘Pere’ in 1968, in those days in France, household plumbing was still a bit primitive.  Our toilet, not to be mistaken with a W.C. was a normal type porcelain affair, sat over a brick shute that emptied into this large concrete tank adjacent and under the house. Instead of the more normal ‘U’ bend you get in a W.C., this one had a plastic ‘lid’ at the bottom with handle attached, handle on the outside I might add. 

One simply flipped the lid and everything shot down the shute! 

 

Without a modern ‘U’ bend of course, there was always a bit of a pong in the ‘little room’. In fact ‘going to the loo’ was sometimes to be avoided until it was un- avoidable!

PLANS

Last year we managed to afford a new ‘gleaming’ septic tank, which was planted in the garden behind the house and connected to a long arrangement of filter pipes elsewhere in the garden.  This whole arrangement does not happen overnight in France.

Unlike the UK where until fairly recently one could borrow a JCB and suitably out of sight, simply bury a septic tank wherever you wished; here in France the procedure takes best part of a year. An inspector is booked to come and survey your property to see if it will sustain a septic tank and its filters. 

Once this hurdle is passed and the actual site plans have been received, you can look for your approved contractor to provide an estimate of cost.

The whole thing took us two years from start to finish. The new bathroom is finished too complete with “proper” WC; and now we have approval from the smart young lady who came to inspect the new drains and filter beds. We asked her for her ideas about converting this old ‘fosse’ into a collection tank for rain water. Of course the water will be used on the garden, “be sure to use plenty of bleach,” were her last words. We did not think bleach mixed with our rainwater, no matter how dilute, would help our garden plants to grow; so we decided to just give it a good wash out.

This is where Jo-Jo comes in, he is the farmer - father in law of our good neighbours André and Roland and he owns a useful gadget called a slurry spreader.

I was dozing in a chair in the conservatory having enjoyed a good lunch of crunchy cauliflower cheese and nice slice of fish. This was followed by a cut price tiramisu found at Super ‘U’ in Bourgeois this morning. ‘Use by today’ it said so we duly obliged and very nice too.

JO JO ARRIVES

The tractor turning into the drive at three thirty, duly had me on my feet post haste and we quickly had the machine in place and sucking at the tank contents quite happily. Jo-Jo is a tall well built chap, always very jovial and was stirring things up in the tank with his huge oversized suction gadget and I went off to find the hose and coupled it up to our well - water irrigation pump. 

The ‘fosse’ was only about half full and after a few minutes we had worked out that when full it would hold three thousand five hundred litres of water.  As the residue smelly liquid reached the bottom we directed a good jet of clear water onto the walls and floor to dilute what was left.

The tanker was still sucking happily and we had our heads down into the ‘fosse’ cleaning this and that quite unaware of the mayhem taking place behind us. If you can picture those comic strip characters with soap suds in a fountain or too much soap in a washing machine, well this was many many times worse!

This slurry tanker holds about two thousand five hundred litres when full and we had not bothered to watch it as the ‘fosse’ was only half full; there would be plenty of room! But in fact it was overflowing, all over the courtyard in front of the house.

As Jo-Jo turned round, prompted by some sixth sense, he leapt up and used some strong words finishing with a French version of ‘it’s never done this before’! It was all the result of the pump sucking a mixture of effluent and air with the ‘fosse’ being almost empty.

The result was something like a giant grey sausage on wheels totally surrounded by creamy grey/brown froth as it poured and cascaded out of the large round inspection hatch similar to a submarine conning tower. It could have been just like a huge whipped up blancmange or angel delight, but this one was over eight feet high and about 20 feet long. ‘It’s just the froth’ said Jo-Jo confidently!

WHAT A PONG....

But that froth had a pong too, not that we two noticed it much at that time as we had had our heads down inside the ‘fosse’ for several minutes and were ‘immune’!

“I’ll move the tractor out into the roadway,” he said; “you find some brushes to get rid of this stuff”. (All in “colloquial” French.)

I suggested that perhaps it would be best to rinse some of the spectacular ’foam’ from the slurry tank before he ventured onto the highway. That done he moved out of the way. It was a good job we both had ‘wellies’ on, even though it was just ‘foam’ it was not the kind of stuff one would like wrapped around ones ankles and socks! It did in fact brush away quite easily, it will take a day or two or even three for the smell to go though.

Jo-Jo was back in a few minutes, I didn’t ask him where he had left the slurry, one doesn’t ask these awkward type of questions in the countryside; and we finished rinsing the inside of the ‘fosse’. ‘Impeccable’ was the result, which could not be said for the courtyard.

Now, Ruth appeared on the scene having slept through all the trauma! Just as well she had not seen that ‘mountain’ of slurry foam spreading across the courtyard a little earlier. The day finished with a “petit coup” or to those not initiated a glass of wine all round.

ends