Bouchon

Bouchon indeed.

And very appropriate as the French for both a cork and a traffic jam is "bouchon". As it happens, the traffic jam was originally caused by a delivery of wine to our local wine shop.

The driver stops his lorry in the single lane one way street to offload, except that this is not just a few crates. Wine in this part of the world is delivered by the tank load, which means connecting the lorry to the vats inside the shop by a pipeline and pumping it through. A job that cannot be hurried.

The locals understand this so its not a problem. Unless of course, you leave your car and go off for a coffee and a bit of shopping, which is what happened in this case.

The lorry driver shut down his pumps and drove off, leaving an empty car blocking the road. That's when the hooting and shouting started.........