Drain, Lille

Oh dear: odeur

There’s one thing I won’t miss about Lille when we head to Belvès next year. It’s the city’s, erm, eau de toilette. Or more accurately, its odeur de toilette.

There are parts of the city where the drains must be quite close to the surface. The hot weather we’ve been having has made that all too clear.

There’s one particular spot we pass every time we go into town. It’s on the corner of our street and Place de la République.

Pooh Corner we call it.

To our amazement, a bar on the corner proved very popular, with people sat out enjoying their drinks and food. It wouldn’t have been a place I would ever have chosen to linger.

Then one day, all of a sudden, it closed. I wondered if the drains outside had played a part in its demise.

Bar at Pooh Corner

It made me think about our future cheese-and-wine bar in Belvès.

We thought we were being terribly clever doing our property viewings out of season, in January and February. We figured we’d be seeing potential business premises at their worst.

We didn’t think about the possible negatives of the summer. What if the heat had revealed a similar problem outside our place?

Fortunately, it hasn’t.

I know the drains have been upgraded in the village. One of the first jobs needed as part of the refurbishment will be to disconnect the pipes from the septic tank and connect them to the mains drainage instead.

I’ll spare you the detail of how that goes.

In fact, I hope this will be my first and last post ever about toilets and drains. I’m sure you do too.

27 Jul This entry was published on Sat, 27 Jul 2019 at 09:27. It’s filed under Places and people and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.

12 thoughts on “Oh dear: odeur”

  1. Bob on said:

    It’s a good thing that cheese has no “odeur”, LOL!

    Liked by 1 person

  2. onleighart on said:

    I expect…. as you are on top of the hill any wiff will be ‘down …below’ ….wot is French for ‘double…entendres ‘….??

    Liked by 1 person

  3. pedmar10 on said:

    It goes without saying all big cities runs into these odeurs and even little critters. Thanks heavens for the country !!!

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Nadia on said:

    We are in belves now. Looking for your shop.

    Liked by 1 person

    • A new life in Lille on said:

      You should find it easily. It’s on the high street.

      Like

      • Nadia on said:

        We actually struggled as there is no sign and I was looking for the one seen on your blog. Eventually, pulled up your blog and saw the window and door so looked for that. Found it😀
        Great location. You must be itching to get started.
        We stopped in at the butcher as we were leaving as I cannot resist a rotisserie chicken and ended up buying saucisse de canard séché, pétales de jambon noire, poulet rôti and a baguette. Great morning out!

        Liked by 1 person

      • A new life in Lille on said:

        And a great lunch to follow, by the sounds of it!
        Glad you found the place. Now you know where to find us in future. Yes, definitely itching to get started.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. herktrav on said:

    We just returned from a trip through Switzerland enduring the heatwave. We came across the same “odeur” on a couple of occasions. Looking forward to a visit to your shop in the future.

    Liked by 1 person

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