24th November 2013

We'd been searching for a chimney sweep for weeks.  The annuaire phone book for Gaillac lists 3 but none responded to my calls. Was going to say story of my life, but it's just simply la France. No commercial spirit.  It wasn't that it was urgent.  Simply that, in France, if you don't have an annual certificate showing your chimney's been swept, no insurance company will pay out.....but then, they don't anyway. Don't get me started on that.  Anyway, as it happens, we were at our local Brico Depot when white van man pulls up next to us and emblazoned on the side:  'Ramonage'.  Quick, run over and ask him to call.   And he did!  Wasn't what I remembered though. As a child in England, we kids all had to run out to the back to shout out when we could see the brushes appear out of the chimney.  (Probably a clever way to get rid of us). Now it's all machinery.  But he was very grimy, so we shook elbows. Some things never change. Hopefully he'll bring us some luck.  Wonder why the Gaillac sweeps never came? Him indoors says: they were detained by the 'flu!