Day: August 10, 2021

It seems that I must try and curb my cynical tendencies. I walked up to the top of my land a short time ago to see if there were any signs of what the man with the fluorescent jacket was up to earlier on. And this is what I found.

The arrow shows the workmen who will eventually come the job’s exact location and the stake precisely where the hole has to be dug to locate the empty plastic tube (‘gaine’) in the now-filled-in trench, marked with a line of greyish stones, coming in from the right in the second shot above.

The next shot is a view from that position back up in the direction from which the trench comes, from Enedis’s connection box (‘coffre’), which can be seen on the other side of the road, just beyond a telegraph pole about 80 metres or so away.

And this is the ‘coffre’ in question.

So maybe, in spite of my cynicism, the job of connecting me up to electricity is closer than I think to being done. Or maybe this is the result of the efforts by SDE24 to push things along and get cable into the ‘gaine’, and once that’s done there’ll then be another long wait for Enedis to actually connect up the cable at each end. I’m afraid I know what I think is the most likely – but then again, that could just be my old cynicism coming out again 😐

A small van just arrived at the top of my land and a gent got out wearing a fluorescent jacket. He took a quizzical look at the point where the trench carrying the empty ‘gaine’ (plastic tube) for the electrical supply ends, then marched up the road to where Enedis’s ‘coffre’ stands, marched back, got back into his van and parked there after first taking a quick detour around Labattut, presumably to make sure that he was in the right place.

Then he re-emerged and measured the distance from the ‘coffre’ to the point on my land where the empty ‘gaine’ ends, got back into his van and drove it back onto the top of my land. There wasn’t much that I could do so I just left him to do his job and take his measurements. Afterwards he turned around and drove off.

Does this mean that I’m close to getting my electrical supply connected? I doubt it. Closer perhaps, but if his firm (Bouyges Energies) has been contracted by SDE24 to extend the cable down to my land I’d surmise that first they will have to submit a ‘devis’ which SDE24 will have to accept and notify them of their decision and they will then have to programme the work, all of which from my experience could take several more weeks.

I live in a constant state of hope but I never raise my hopes as experience has shown that it’s not worth it 🙁