Not much happening at the weekend, then

... said S, when he came back from buying the paper.

We like reading our local paper to keep tabs on what's going on, but they are really scraping the barrel here. "After moving the letterbox ... the Post Office wants to move the doorbell too." Read on to find out more!

Apparently the story is that these two houses are off a drive about 20 metres from the main road. A few weeks ago they received a letter from the post office telling them that regulations require letterboxes to be accessible from a public road, and the "unmade track" was inaccessible to the postman on his moped (cue photo of gravel drive easily wide enough for two cars to pass, with parked car for scale). Would they therefore please move their boxes to the entrance to the drive, otherwise the postman would cease delivery.

They ignored the letter, but then a second one came, reiterating the demands. Well, OK, they shrugged, and moved the boxes to the end of the drive. Life went on. A few weeks later, the post office failed to deliver a parcel. The reason? "Now that you have moved your mailboxes away from the houses, the postman can't attract your attention when he has an item too large for the mailbox. Please provide a doorbell next to the mailbox." "Maybe we should move our houses to the end of the drive too ..." mused one resident.

So that's the front page news here in rural France. I had to check it wasn't April 1st.