Bob and I kicked off the day in the Patisserie cafe which though relatively new in Esperaza has performed wonders - good cheap coffee and tea (Tetleys, for a wonder) brilliant pastries and cakes and chocolates and buscuits all made on site by the sweet couple that run it. Sitting in the window it is possible to see the world pass by - our little commune is creaking back into life.
Thence to St Hilaire for lunch at the house of our friend Lizzie - en route passing the imposing abbey. Lunch was wonderful and a selction of well-chosen wines kept me grinning through the afternoon :)
The real news here is the letter most of us have got from the President of the Communauté de communes Pyrénées Audoisese. Each household is being taxed 195 euros for waste management, that is, dustbin emptying and dump control. Do we not pay tax d'habitation for this, I hear you cry?
My choir had warned me, their token foriegner, that this was going to happen. They had urged me not to pay as they said that it was an error made by the department in the sums it did when they joined forces with other communes. It was their mistake, we should not have to pay for it. Then when the bills arrived I heard other gossip; that this was a scam enacted on the English. I went straight to the font of all knowledge, Andree, who said we were all mad, we had not paid last year and this is to make up for it. Pay it now, she says.
Which begs the question of what taxe d'hab. is for...
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