February, 2016 – Graham Miln

Are French snakes dangerous? – Part 1.2

We visit Moulins to pick doors, windows, and fittings for the house. Graham encounters a snake on the building site.

Credits
Transcript

Good morning.

We are off to Moulins today to pick out doors and windows. Much longer day of travel as its about three hours each way. But first we go to Vichy by train.

Vichy. Ici Vichy.

Now we pick up the car.

Small Nissan today. Think this is the first Nissan I have driven. Should be interesting.

OK.

Meeting is just done. We have been in there, oh my god, about. About two and half hours. Two and half hours.

That was a good meeting. We have gone through tens of different choices.

Windows, doors, railings, all sorts of things.

So, we are now to drive and head towards the land. Probably have lunch somewhere.

Yes, that would be good.

Seem to be doing a lot of river diversion or river changing at Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule. Incredible.

Just had lunch by the river. They’re doing all those works.

We are now going to visit the land. Do some measurements. Check we are happy with bits and pieces.

Oh.

Since we were last here, they have started laying out the markings to do the foundation. We’ve got pink string indicating the edges of the walls.

They have obviously put down some gravel. The driveway has been further compacted, I presume through vehicles.

This is my low tech but surprisingly effective method of measuring ten, about eleven metres at a time.

String, lots of it, and we’ve tied up every metre. A knot and a little label with an arrow for the direction back to zero. Perfect.

Having that rather sad conversation about whether we should get rid of a tree. We have been advised by family that, yes, we probably should.

Always a shame to do but looking at it on site, we can see the roots coming through on the banks, we can see the tree is embedded in the wall.

Well, you can see it.

As much as I hate destroying a tree, or cutting down a tree, we are going to have to ask the project manager to get rid of the tree.

He did ask the last time we were here, did we want it. So, presumably he sees it as bit of a potential problem. Shame.

The snakes in France aren’t too dangerous are they?

Hello.

You are…

…best left were they are.

One of the big changes we have seen this visit, the water’s connected. That blue PVC pipe and tap. Well that is that we are waiting for before the foundations can start.

It has been a long day but we have done what we needed to do and now we head back to Lyon.

Time to return the keys to them.

Back at Vichy train station. Seems to be a bit of altercation with the police further up the station platform.