Living on the edge

We have a new road – well lane really – to our house after many years of avoiding various potholes and enjoying which plants have managed to survive being tarred and gravelled!

The first part was done at the start of the week and we had a couple of days with half a road since we live on the edge of everywhere. The completed part of the road is in the commune of Nouans-Les-Fontaines but the other part of the road and our house is in the commune of Orbigny. This part of the road was completed a few days later but doesn’t, and apparently never has, quite made it to the gateway into our house. This part is simply compounded earth and stone with defiant bits of vegetation living where it can.

Not only are we on the edge of the commune but we are also on the edge of the department with both the Loir-et-Cher and the Indre boundaries not more than five and ten minutes away respectively. This can lead to some very bizarre situations. The banks in either of the other departments will only allow certain transactions such as the withdrawal of money, but only in the Indre-et-Loire can I pay in cheques or cash. This was particularly vexing when we didn’t have a cash machine at our local bank as the nearest cash machine at the time was in Ecueille, which is ten to fifteen minutes away in the car but….in the department of  Indre.  And bank opening hours are never that convenient at the best of times.

Still I quite like the idea of the living on the edge – it sounds a lot more exciting and interesting (and yes, we now have a cash machine in our local bank at Montresor which is about seven minutes away in the car). Oh, you might have noticed how precise I am about the timings because this is the way I measure distance for all my day to day activities. So I have no idea how far away something is in kilometres but I can tell you how long it’ll take to get there. Time is precious, I wonder what the equivalent french saying is?