Sid the Snake

After a long journey to France, we were glad to arrive home to La Roue.  We were tired and hungry.  All we wanted was to take our personal stuff out of one of the storage rooms and settle in.

Alan opened the door to the storage room but before he could step inside to switch on the lights, I made him stop.  What was that long thing I could see on the floor?  It looked like a snake, but as I didn’t have my glasses on and didn’t want Alan to think that I had totally lost it, so I just said wait.  I got a lamp from one of the rooms and switched it on.  OMG, it was a snake! 

We both immediately qualified for the British Olympic team in the sport of jumping backwards and shrieking.  Then we realised that it wasn’t moving and closer inspection revealed it was in fact a snakeskin.  Eventually Alan volunteered to go in and change the light bulb, which had blown (does this sound like a B movie film?), but I stopped him.  I had watched that Nat Geo series on the doctor who treated snake bites; why your body could blow up to twice its size (ah ha, maybe I was bitten by a snake and didn’t realise it!) and bits could drop off (however, if I could get bitten on my muffin top it would be worth it!).

I should tell you at this point that this room is one of the unfinished rooms, so the walls and the insulation are exposed, boxes covered the floor and were in turn covered with plastic sheets and leaves that had managed to blow into the room somehow.  Add a nice coating of winter mouse poop and you get the picture.  A contained warren of hiding places really.

Once I had pointed out to Alan that the snake would now be bigger than the skin, that we didn’t know one type of snake from another and that even if we found it, how would we get rid of it, he too decided that entering the room would be rather fool hardy. 

I decided that we should call out pest control (at last I would get to meet the boys from Verminaters).  Sensibly Alan decided to call the people who manage the house to get some advice on whom to call (I guess California is a long way for the Verminater team to travel from).  The woman, once she had stopped laughing, told Alan that the skin had been there for a year, and that they had left it there (just inside the doorway), in case we wanted to see it??!

I ask you, is it me or was that just a plain stupid thing to do?  The skin is still sitting there awaiting Roy’s arrival.  I bet he takes it to make into a snakeskin band for his hat.

AND THAT WASN'T ALL...

Oh yes, and in the icky department.  We have a weekly garbage collection on Wednesday.  Clearly the garbage had not been left out for collection and so we arrived to a full bin of garbage on Saturday.  Poor Alan had to really push the garbage down to get ours in.  


After it was emptied on Wednesday, Pauline discovered there were maggots in the bin.  Poor Alan, he had had his hand in that bin.  Talk about green looking.  It almost put him off his wine.  Yes, notice no photos!

Alan had the job or trying to get them out of the tall bin, whilst Pauline was on backup with a kettle full of hot water to swish out the bin.  Ian and I sat with a drink and pretended not to notice anything amiss!  

Er, this is Ian, but of course you've worked that out already!