On the way back from Fortnums this afternoon I saw a car stopped with a flat tyre at the the junction down the road. I carry an electric pump, so stopped to lend it to the driver. This is not pure altruism: it’s an earnest hope that someone will do the same for me some day. But I’m bound to say that nobody has ever stopped to offer help when I’ve had tyre problems. But I’ll continue - with self-interest aforethought - to build up my capital of indirect returnable favours whenever I can.
This is the way of life in rural France: on rend service expecting nothing directly in return, but expects others to do the same. For example, when a truck driver with an oversized load took out Annie’s phone line at Le Roc, a neighbour had phoned in the fault before we knew it. (Said phone line has a chequered past. Once when we were staying a fault in the line was traced to a shotgun pellet creating a short. So rural France, for all its altruism, is not without its hazards.)
Martyn and his sister were talking earlier about the late Michael’s approach to filing. This reignited the itch in the back of my mind that I can’t find the V5c registration document for my car. We always used to have it to hand when we were travelling, so I can only guess that it got thrown out when we were clearing out in Lagrasse back in 2017.
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