I belong to an English/French Association, and one evening having come back late from a quiz night, decided to sit and have a drink before going to bed. (Actually was rather excited because we’d won. I know, I know, I should get out more).

Sitting watching television, I heard a noise in the corner ceiling of the living room. Sounded very much to me like some wasps or bees had got in from the holes in the pointing outside. Strange, I’d not heard that particular noise before.  When I went to bed, I put my ear to the floor of the bedroom, in the same place as I’d heard the noise, and yes, there it still was.

The following afternoon a friend called and I asked her to listen to the noise to see if she could identify it. She wasn’t sure, so I left it at that. Three days later whilst having a cuppa and a snack, something made me look around at the ceiling. I don’t know what, but I was so glad I had. Hanging from one of the beams, from the tiniest hole was a SNAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Expletives deleted here. I just ran. My neighbour lived about 200 yards away, and I went like the wind. Well, when I say wind and considering I was wearing flip-flops and can’t run 200 metres anyway, I went as fast as I could. I had to keep stopping to catch my breath, and when I finally arrived she was in the car just pulling out of her driveway.
I waved my hands like a mad woman shouting in a hoarse whisper for her to stop. She waved back, then realised I was in trouble. She got of the car and asked if it was my ‘sante’. She obviously thought I was having a heart attack. At this stage I was gasping like a marathon runner that has just beaten the world record.

  When I got enough breath back I told her there was a serpent in my living room. I realise now that the word serpent is something like a cobra or man-eating python, and what I should have said was une couleuvre, which is a grass snake. All she could say was ‘Rene doesn’t like snakes’ Rene being the husband, who when told about it, gave a grimace and a shrug, as he was watching the French Open Tennis.

So Elise got me into her car and drove back to my house, asking then if I had a broom handle.  Yes, I’d just bought a new one. She took it and we ventured into the room as if we were going into the depths of a jungle. I cautiously pushed one settee out of the way, and then she screamed as she spotted it climbing up the door. I leapt to the other side of the room whilst she set about it with the broom handle, bits of which were now flying around the room.

Then Rene arrived with an enormous farm spade full of mud, and proceeded to bash seven bells out of it, to cries from Elise ‘Hit it on the tail’ and from me ‘Hit it on the head’ During this attack I worried about the state my floor tiles were going to be in and the room, as clods of clay were flying everywhere. Eventually we all decided it was dead and Rene disposed of it and went back to the tennis. Elise and I got out the wine.

That really was an awful, awful experience but when I e-mailed my friends and old colleagues in England, they e-mailed back saying it was the funniest tale they’d heard in ages. And my friend, who said she wasn’t sure what it was, then told me she had wondered if it was a snake, but thought she’d better not say anything. Too right!

Then everyone suddenly became a snake expert. ‘’They are always on their own’’  ‘‘they only come somewhere where it is quiet’’ ‘‘you’ll not see any more’’ Oh really?  How come then exactly one week later in exactly the same spot I saw another one just lying along the beam. I could hardly believe my eyes. I rang a friend who lives about 6 minutes away and is an animal lover, who’d been horrified that I’d let the other one be killed. He came armed with cardboard box, stood on a chair and grabbed it.

It tried to get back into the ceiling space, but he kept hold. I rather let myself down, by saying "pull it’s head off if necessary." Shame on me. But my head had been on a swivel for a week staring every two minutes to the place on the beam. I’d been on hands and knees every morning looking under settees, bookcases and even pushed a towel under the bedroom door, in case one decided to venture upstairs.

Not such a wild idea as a friend had once found shed snakeskin on her bed. She didn’t sleep in there again for weeks, and they never found the snake.
One week later exactly the same thing happened, head and tail peeped out from the same hole. As I jumped up (expletives deleted again) it must have seen or heard me and shot back into the hole.

That was it! I was nearly in hysterics and decamped to my sons for the night, and the morning after he filled every visible hole in all the beams, with expanding foam. So the snake is either still there, embedded forever in foam, or went back where it came from.  So can you blame me for having a new house built, having made the builder promise that it would be sealed completely?

So that’s the LOWS of an old house, and I sincerely hope I haven’t put you off your lovely French dream house.

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