I am sure many of you must have amusing stories relating to nature and wild animals here in France. I’ll start off with a few of mine… all very abbreviated.
Here in Provence we live very close to nature. From a wild tortoise strolling through our garden to a family of Sangliers rampaging through our wood, our animal neighbours are never far away… and sometimes much too close for comfort.
One morning we discovered water cascading through the ceilings of the guest rooms downstairs…fortunately they were empty at the time. Investigations revealed that mice had been chewing the plastic water pipes in the floor above, looking for water. Investigations in fact meant hours and hours spent levering tiles off bathroom walls and cutting out sections of plaster board to find the leaks! Once repaired we had no option but to put poison down in the walls, and in the cave, in an effort to get rid of the unwelcome and thirsty guests.
Be warned, if you live in the country and your plumber tells you what a good idea plastic water pipes are instead of copper ones, don‘t do it!
It was a warm summer’s evening, and our guests were eagerly awaiting to eat juicy barbequed steaks and shining Mediterranean Dorades, Suddenly we found that the gas barbecue wouldn’t light(unfortunately in our pine forest in Provence, charcoal ones are banned because of fire risk!) After OH had completely dismantling the barbeque, we found that a spider had spun a silk nest in the gas tube leading to the burner! Supper was a little late that evening!
A few years ago, not long after we arrived in Provence, a quiet sunday lunch with friends was interrupted by a bat coming down the chimney of the dining room and flying around the room in circles, occasionally coming to rest in the curtains. After an hour or so chasing the poor thing with a fishing net and opening all the doors, it finally escaped… and lunch was resumed. We now have a chimney insert which means that can never happen again…and the fire now heats the room and not the sky although personally I would rather have an open fire, but that’s another issue.
One day as I was making breakfast, we found tell tale evidence of a mouse or rat in the kitchen, undoubtedly one brought in and let go by one of the cats. We took apart the kitchen but found no sign of the culprit. As a last resort…we tipped up the refrigerator and saw a long tail dangling from the underneath. We poked it with a bamboo stick and a large rat jumped out. Not sure what to do, we put two cats in the room, shut all the doors and waited. A chases ensued for several minutes, ending up with the rat sitting on top of the cat’s scratching post, snarling at all comers…. who in turn, feigning boredom, turned tail and left the room! We then had to chase the rat with a fishing net, finally catching it and evacuated it to a nearby field. before returning and reprimanding the chief cat, who looked very embarrassed.
Post script: two nights later as we went to bed, we found the chief cat looking smug by our bedroom door.… inside we found a large and very dead rat laid out neatly on the mat at the foot of bed. The message was received, loud and clear!
Arriving home at midnight, after dinner out with friends, I walked unsteadily up the path to the door, key poised to go into the lock. Thank goodness that for once I had remembered to put on the porch light. Suddenly I heard a hissing noise and looked down, shrieked and jumped back all in one go. There by the cat flap was a huge snake, with its head raised up to attack me…My OH arrived and grabbed my straw bag and used it like a bullfighter’s cape to draw the snake away from the door while I gained entry. The snake soon slithered away into the bushes. Chief cat was watching this scenario with great amusement and we could only conclude that he had perhaps tried to take the snake in through the cat flap as a gift for us. Why else would an otherwise shy and unagressive snake (It was a coulevre … grass snake…de Montpellier.. dangerous only to small mammals because of the poisonous fangs in the back of it‘s throat) be sitting in a bright light by our door ready to take on all comers!!
And most recently: We arrived home one evening a week ago in pouring rain, to find the automatic gates suddenly wouldn’t open. We assumed the batteries in the beeper had failed or that perhaps rain had got in to the electrics. It took twenty minutes to walk up to the house, find the manual lever for the gates and get them open. Next day when the rain had finally stopped, OH took the two electrical control boxes apart and discovered that ants had built a huge nest inside both of them. Three hours and a can of ant killer later, all was working again.
I hate using poisons against wild creatures great or small, but unhappily there is sometimes no other realistic option.
All I can say is a big thank you to my other half who has never ever been defeated by a problem and who has often saved us a fortune in professional call out costs . We would never Survive France without his amazing skills and determination.
