Couler

Monsieur G asked me to come and see something and as we walked he explained.  Except that the key word - coule, couler, or something - meant absolutely nothing to me.  I think I'm making progress in French until I find myself in a situation like this.  He squeezed the sides of his little finger and I sort of gathered that it was the size of something, but what?

Then we were peering down into the trench that he'd dug across the drive that was to take the rain water pipe and the outlet from the fosse septique and gradually, with lots of using the same words, I got the message.  We knew that he had to take care digging around and under the pipe that carried our mains water down to the cottage.  He grumbled at how badly it had been laid, too near to the surface (what about frost?) and no coloured netting laid above it (a useful ploy to warn anyone digging up the road that there is a pipe below, each service has its own colour). 

It wasn't our mains water pipe he wanted me to see, but another old metal one that he'd cut through and that was leaking (so that's what couler means!).  And the little finger gesture?  The quantity of water.

The leak was slow, but persistent, a muddy brown colour.  I guessed it was coming from the well in Monsieur F's field up behind us.  Hard to believe but the cottage at the bottom of the drive never had mains water. It was only served by a single pipe from the well, laid below the lane, that lead to an outside tap. The flow is now no more than a trickle.  I hope the flow was better when Serge and his parents lived there.

We agree that Monsieur G will redirect the flow and lay a new pipe in the same trench that will hold our drainage system.  He'll put a tap at the side of the drive and perhaps, after it's rained heavily, there may be enough well water to use on the garden.