A few words of background - we just had the drive repaved and our assumption, shared between the universal indrawn breath whistle of Thierry, was that somehow he had fractured an old water pipe that had was close to the surface where no water pipe should be. Hence Thierry was on the hook for causing this and hence, more to the point, he appreciated that the longer it remained unfixed the worse the eventual driveway repairs would be. Thus his dispatch of some gars ASAP to investigate and, once the problem was found, fix in conjunction with a plumber.
These gentlemen, Patrick & Antoine, accompanied by their dogs, showed up and between puffs on cigarettes and cries of "Vien ici" to the dogs who liked exploring the garden, they dug and discovered a mystery. Lots and lots of water was bubbing up but there was not a pipe to be seen (important language note for visitors to France - the French for a pipe is NOT une pipe it is un tuyau- do NOT, under any circumstances, pop into your local DIY store and say in your best French "Excuzez moi, j'ai besoin d'une pipe"). Anyway as I discussed this lack of TUYAU with Patrick we also discussed the likely origin of the water.
Anyway after the initial dig had been made and it failed to find a pipe close to the surface the plumber was called, but unfortunatey he couldn't come immediately due to other critical leaks that needed his attenion ("il arrivera demaing mating vers 8h30" - Patrick has a strong local accent) because he is also a "sourcier" aka water diviner and could thus advise as to where to go next. When the plumber arrived (15h00 not 8h30 - but he called to warn) he used bent copper divining rods to verify the existance of the pipe, the likely depth (could be 1m down), and the location of the leak. He then hit an impass, something that had failed to occur to either me or Patrick, namely where exactly did he go to switch the water off. In fact he quickly pointed out that this was actually not my responsibility but the responsibility of the water company and we called Lyonnaise des Eaux who are responsible for the Canal. They immediately did the slopey shoulders trick and referred us to the local municipal water company. Fortunately the latter responded promptly with a nice man in a van who confirmed that it really was the responsibiltiy of Lyonnaise des Eaux and we got on the phone to them again, this time with verbal assurances from both plumber and municapal maintenance man Lyonaise promised to send someone around to have a look and, probably, deal with it because it really is their problem not mine.
We waited until 5pm before we all decided that the Lyonaise clearly weren't coming today. This was depressing but I almost feel I was repaid because while the plumber, the maintenance man, Patrick and Antoine were waiting they chatted about other leaks and the like. Not only did I get lots of work at local dialects I got local history and local geography lessons as well as potted bios of local characters and the science of divining, al of which, especialy the latter, was fascinating. The rational part of my soul says that there is no way that two bent bits of wire can possibly locate a pipe, but the empirical engineer sees that it works, at least for some people. I witnessed the plumber locate half a dozen water and sewerage pipes. He was able to not just identify the location but also to state what direction the flow was and there is no way he could possibly have known in advance. At least if he did he must have an encaclopaedic memory because the local maintenance man, who does know the layout outside my gate, was able to confirm every find and the word tangle really doesn't do justice to what is there.
Unfortunately when the Lyonnaise show up the will undoubtedly go for the cheapest option - cutting the water off permenantly - which is a bit of a blow because the free irrigation water was a boon to my neighbour and his bassin. A little bit of history will die along with it too, but I'm grateful for an afternoon learning about it first.