Month: July 2025

As he had promised, my contact in the Chinese supplier duly sent through the pictures of my machine and accessories out of manufacturing and ready for shipping. As well as the auger for drilling fence post holes and the 400mm bucket that it comes with I’ve also ordered a 200mm bucket, both of which are laid out on the factory floor in front of the machine.

The larger bucket will be fine for digging out for concrete bases and shoving earth around but the smaller bucket will be needed for digging out wall foundations and the trench for an electricity cable that I want to run down to the bottom of my land. I toyed with the idea of adding a ‘thumb’ to the order which is used for picking up logs, rocks and other large objects but I’m still undecided and will need to make up my mind before I do the transfer of funds for the balance of the purchase price.

The addition of a ‘thumb’ will make for a very attractive total package when I come to sell the machine when I’ve finished with it although I don’t really need it for now. However, if I buy it now it comes at a very attractive price, far less than it will be worth when I sell it later with the machine, so I need to think seriously about it.

I think my machine might be a bit smaller than the one I’ve previously received pictures of, which from the vents in the side panels was the version standing behind my machine. Is it worth making a fuss over? Probably not because I may be wrong. The different side panels may just be because my machine is a diesel as it’s difficult to make an exact size comparison and I’m told my machine is a ’12’ which is as previously pictured and ordered.

Since paying the initial deposit I’ve done further due diligence on the Chinese supplier as you can never be too careful, as I found out with my Chinese electric bike. Although I found the supplier on Aliexpress, the Chinese equivalent of Amazon, subsequent contacts have revealed a connection with Alibaba, the more ‘pro’ parent arm dealing in wholesale and multiple orders.

When I contacted Aliexpress customer services in order to get more information on the supplier they couldn’t help and referred me to Alibaba. Its customer services also couldn’t help very much, mainly I think because the transaction wasn’t done via their platform so they didn’t earn any commission out of it, and I was referred back to Aliexpress.

So I had to do more searching myself and I found links for both the company’s Aliexpress web store and also its Alibaba outlet where it is referred to as a ‘verified’ supplier. I also found the company’s own web site showing contact information where it describes its 30 year history and mentions the success it has achieved with its Aliexpress store which it established in November of last year. This ties in with what it says on Aliexpress, and I’ve also received other material eg official approval certificates in which names, addresses etc also tie up.

So I’ve done all I can really and now it’s time to press the final button, transfer the balance of the purchase price and wait for the machine and its accessories to arrive in Marseilles. And before I do, decide what I’m going to do about that ‘thumb’…

I came back to say it’s entirely paid for now. I thought it would be a false economy not to include a mechanical (as opposed to the more expensive hydraulic) thumb as it’ll allow me to clear the undergrowth out of the copse of trees next to my house. Apparently there’s a regulation that says you have to do it up to 50 metres from the building because of the fire risk. So another job to be added to the list. I was also assured that the machine is ‘as ordered’.

When I flew up to la Rochelle on France’s Atlantic coast at the end of June to get my Savannah’s avionics recertified, not only was the visit unsuccessful because the testing station unfortunately damaged my transponder but I also therefore had to fly back to Malbec without it. That in itself wasn’t a big deal. What was more so was that by the time I took off the air temperature was over 35 degrees C and the turbulence I endured during the flight was brutal.

Although I started it up, the GoPro in my cabin let me down yet again and the only video that was recorded was from outside on the starboard wing. The video I made from that footage is shown below.

This is the hardest and longest to edit video that I’ve ever made and I’m glad to see the back of it! Editing the video was fraught with as many problems as the flight itself – more actually as my video editing software, Corel Videostudio Ultimate, kept constantly throwing up sound errors. I think it’s time to move on to another package, but that’s for later.

I mention the problems, none of them insurmountable, that occurred during the flight in the video itself. I made the flight to have the six-yearly test done on my Savannah’s avionics but in the end that didn’t happen because the testing station unfortunately somehow damaged my transponder and removed it for repair. That means that when it’s been fixed I’ll have to return and do the whole flight over again.

?

I had to fly back to Malbec without my transponder but that was no big deal. I made a video of the return flight which appears in a follow-up post.

Well, it’s either the most elaborate scam that I’ve ever come across or I’ve managed to snag the best mini-excavator deal ever. I think it’s the latter but I’ll not know until I’m told that the machine is ready to be cleared through customs at Marseilles.

In either case this morning I jumped right in and transferred an initial 30% deposit into an account in Luxemburg in order to trigger production and now it will just be a waiting game.

I received another picture of the machine I’ve ordered which I’ve posted below and it’s a handsome little brute (if you like this kind of thing).

It’s not a toy. Far from it. It’s a commercial grade machine that if I was a contractor I’d be buying to use on small contracts – for digging trenches and foundations on site, for light landscape work, for general light work on farms and so on. To say that it’ll do what I want it to is a considerable understatement.

Production should take 20-30 days after which I’ll be set up to do a video inspection. I’ll then be asked to pay the remaining 70% of the agreed purchase price and then it’ll be packed up and taken to the port to be shipped, which should take up to 50 days.

So I should get the machine in around the middle of October and only then will I know that everything has gone according to plan. I’ve done all the due diligence that I can and I’m pretty confident things will work out 😉

I asked for more images of the mini excavator I’ve ordered to do the work I’m planning around my house and garden and received another video this morning. I’m very impressed. It looks to be a high quality, well made machine and compares very favourably with others I’ve seen by researching on Youtube etc.

I’m sure that it’ll be more than adequate for the work I want to do with it and when I’m finished in a year or so’s time it’ll be very easy to move on, probably for not much less than I’ll have paid for it if nothing major goes wrong. I think it will be a good investment.

I’ve had quite a few things to deal with recently one of which has been deciding what to do about getting underway with work on my garden and installing my new little swimming pool. The latter’s kit has been standing outside my house since May but other things have taken priority and it’s now fully evident that it won’t be in for this summer as I didn’t receive the official approval to go ahead anyway until early this month.

I’ve decided how I want to install it as shown in the following image. I want to kill two birds with one stone. The ‘terrasse’ at the rear of my house and the path surrounding it were never properly created and stabilised by the builder when my house was built and that now has to be done and the process of doing so will involve the use of equipment to shift soil and stone around. Stabilisation of the ground will involve the construction of a retaining wall on two sides which will also serve to enclose the pool as shown in the image.

The wall will need stepped foundations down one side because of the land’s downward slope and the pool will also need a fairly substantial reinforced concrete base because of its weight and the weight of the water it will contain. Both of these will need to be dug out using an excavator.

But thinking ahead, that’s not all. I need to relocate the ‘abri’ that I placed in front of my house before it was built down to the bottom of my land where I originally located my caravan during its construction and that will involve excavating another concrete base and after that I’ll need to extend the original ‘abri’ base in the front of the house to build a nice garage-cum-workshop. I also intend to shift the black stone that the builder laid in my driveway and around the house with white stone which again can’t be done by hand.

But it won’t end there. When the work at the rear has been completed I’ll need to complete the fencing around my house and land. That will involve removing a few posts that were originally banged into the ground, one of which was recently broken by a tractor mowing the adjacent land , and inserting quite a few more to complete the ‘cloture’ at the side and the front, which again will require the use of equipment.

You can see where I’m going with this. I recently contacted one ‘trusted’ contractor to get going on all this but he hasn’t bothered to come and see the job and I’m utterly fed up with this attitude that is so prevalent among such people here in France. Hiring an excavator costs around 200€ per day plus delivery and at that rate I’ll probably end up paying 2000€ or more just for that given the jobs that need doing. So I’ve decided to go it alone.

Fortunately I’ve found someone who’s happy to come in and give me a hand whenever I need him and that is all I’ll need – apart from the equipment. I’ve already got a motor-driven concrete mixer (I sold my electric one for a good price when I took it out of storage) so all I’ll need is an excavator and a post hole driller – an auger – and those are what I’ve been searching for for the last few days to source from, you’ve guessed it, China.

Checking the prices of second-hand mini excavators on Le Bon Coin, the hugely popular free ads web site here in France, they seem to be in the range of 4000€ plus depending on the size of the machine. However, by importing the kind of machine I need direct from China, a smallish 1 tonne machine with a 400mm bucket, I can get it for much less. Much less!

So that’s what I’m doing and while I’m at it, I’m also importing an auger that can be attached to the machine so I can complete my fence work.

I’ve posted below a couple of videos of Chinese mini-excavators. The first shows a machine with a pivoting boom in order to show this feature. It’s quite elaborate with tracks that can be made wider or narrower and other features I won’t need.

The next is the one I’m importing but with a pivoting boom. It’s less elaborate than the one shown above but will do all that I’ll need it to do. It’s also less expensive.

Finally, here’s a video of the kind of auger I’ll also be importing.

I’ve already discussed the import procedure with the French customs. The machine will be custom made to my order in 2-3 weeks with a Euro 5 diesel engine and will then be shipped to Marseilles. All I’ll then need to do is hire a heavy vehicle recovery type trailer and go down to pick it up. I’m quite excited

In aviation we have what are called TAFs – Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts, which are produced every few hours for larger airports and tell us what the weather is expected to be doing there at any particular time in the following 24 hours or so. They are useful when planning a flight not only to see what conditions will probably be like at your destination but also at any airfields along your route if they produce their own TAFS.

For me, not only is the TAF for La Rochelle useful but en route I also pass Cognac, an ‘armée de l’air’ air base conveniently half way between Malbec, my starting point and La Rochelle, which also produces a TAF. So I use both in my flight planning and they are important in influencing my decisions about the flight including whether I should even go or not.

As seems to be becoming more and more usual whenever I rely on other people for something to happen, I was let down. I didn’t make it to La Rochelle yesterday. The testing station there that was responsible for damaging my transponder said that they have received it back from repair but that they were unable to refit it yesterday and carry out the testing on my Savannah’s avionics they were originally supposed to do.

I told them that I had to fly up yesterday because otherwise the weather was going to become unsuitable for an indefinite period but they said they couldn’t accommodate me but that they could maybe fit me in today. But sure enough the TAFS yesterday for Cognac and La Rochelle looked to be ruling the flight out so at the end of the afternoon I told them I’d not be coming and indeed, although the Cognac TAF has marginally improved, the TAF for La Rochelle is still indicating a high probability of thunderstorms at about the time I’d be arriving.

Cognac TAF

From Friday 5:00 till Saturday 5:00:
Wind 300° 5kt. Ceiling and visibility OK.
Becoming from Friday 6:00 till 7:00:
Clouds broken 14000ft towering cumulus.
Temporarily from Friday 6:00 till 8:00: Visibility 3000m. light thunderstorm rain. Clouds broken 14000ft cumulonimbus.
Becoming from Friday 9:00 till 11:00:
Ceiling and visibility OK.
With 40% probability, temporarily from Friday 14:00 till 16:00: Clouds scattered 9000ft towering cumulus

La Rochelle TAF

From Friday 8:00 till Saturday 8:00:
Wind 340° 8kt. Ceiling and visibility OK.
Temporarily from Friday 8:00 till 12:00: Visibility 2500m. thunderstorm rain. Clouds broken 7000ft cumulonimbus.
Temporarily from Friday 15:00 till 22:00: Wind 290° 15kt, gusting 25kt.
With 30% probability, temporarily from Friday 22:00 till Saturday 5:00: Visibility 4000m. light shower rain. Clouds broken 7000ft towering cumulus.
With 40% probability from Saturday 2:00 till 8:00: Clouds broken 900ft.

So that looks like it and for some time to come from the weather forecasts that are currently available. That’s really annoying as it wasn’t my fault that I’ve got to make a second trip up to La Rochelle but yet again I’m the one being subjected to the maximum inconvenience and disruption because of it. 🙁

I’ve been informed that my Savannah’s transponder has now been repaired and that I can therefore return to La Rochelle for it to be refitted and the Savannah’s 6-yearly avionics check to be completed. I’ve checked the weather and it looks as though the best day for the flight will be this coming Thursday 17th July as after that the weather looks as though it will become more unpredictable.

Both of the times I’ve been into La Rochelle the wind has been off the sea making for a straightforward approach and landing on runway 27. However, it looks as though the wind will be fairly light on Thursday but from the opposite direction. The primary ILS (instrument landing system) for the commercials going into La Rochelle (eg Ryanair) is on runway 27 and it’s likely that they might still use that runway despite there being a small tailwind for them but I don’t know whether that will apply for me doing a VFR approach which is published to be to 09 to the north on a left hand circuit over the sea.

The VFR departure to the south on 09 is also slightly more complex as it takes a similar but reverse route to the approach to runway 27 following the main road out to reporting point E (Echo) before then turning to head south. It therefore looks as though Thursday’s flight could be quite interesting especially as I’ll also be entering controlled airspace without a transponder this time.

But it’s taken time, effort and not a little money as I’ll go on to explain.

This Autumn I’ve planned to travel to Australia to meet with my cousin who’s the same age as me but who I haven’t seen since her family emigrated from the UK to Aus when we were about five years old. My family planned to go as well at the same time and we’d started to make all of the necessary arrangements but my dad got what he thought was a plum new job just beforehand and we stayed behind. Up until my last house move I still had a couple of 1950’s tea chests (wooden boxes about 1 metre cubed in which tea was shipped from Ceylon as it was then to the UK) with traces of tea still in them that my dad had got hold of to pack things in for the voyage.

But I digress. A few months ago I suddenly got the urge to get in contact with Denise, my cousin, but with little to go on I thought it would be a pretty hopeless task after so long but my brother in law came across some old correspondence from 30 or more years ago with a telephone number and when I phoned it was Denise who answered. Who’d have thought it. We’ve been in touch ever since and after a while I decided that as we are nearly the last of our generation in our two families, I’d make the trip to Aus to see each other for what might at our age be the first and last time.

I set to the task of making all of the necessary arrangements with enthusiasm. I figured on travelling this coming Autumn as that would coincide with Springtime in Australia and as this was around the turn of this year I was able to snag some pretty good prices for the air fare and car hire in Australia by booking and paying months in advance. Similarly for a hotel in Melbourne which I planned to explore for a few days before then continuing my journey to my cousin’s place in Victoria, but what I totally neglected to think about was my visitor visa.

After all, what could possibly go wrong? All I’ll need to do, I reasoned, was apply for one, probably on line, pay whatever fee is demanded, provide proof of identity etc and wait for it to plop into my letter box. What? Convicts used to be transported there from England back in the day, for goodness sake, I’m not an international criminal, terrorist or gun-runner so surely it should be just a formality? Well, no actually. This could not be further from the truth and in reality I had no idea how difficult it would be to get into Australia. Here’s how it went.

First step, of course, was to make the application on line, but not so fast. This required the submission of page after page of information, not just about oneself but also, indirectly, about one’s family, one’s health, finances, reason(s) for visiting Australia, what one’s intentions were once there, who one would be visiting together their details and much, much more. The process was mind-bending and seemingly endless and it didn’t end with the payment of a fairly hefty non-refundable fee of $200AU. That was just the start of the application process.

First I was required to submit copies of various documents that went some way beyond proof of identity and passport. I had to show evidence that if I had travelled internationally previously I had conformed to visa requirements and left the country or countries concerned according to the required timescales. I also had to provide evidence that I had the means and permission to return to my country of origin or departure and the means to finance my intended period of stay in Australia in the form of official bank statements and it should also be added that all copies of documents submitted had to be officially confirmed and verified.

All of the above was tedious, time consuming but was at least under my control, but there was more in the form of two, non-negotiable additional requirements. The first was the provision of my biometrics in the form of fingerprints and a photograph taken by an Australian government approved agency, usually a local Australian consulate. There is no Australian consulate in France however, that can perform this role – the closest one is in London – so an official agent has been appointed to do so. This agent happens to be in Paris so I had no choice but to make the journey to their office to accomplish the task. The only problem was that the Australian immigration authorities only allow 14 days from the date of application for biometrics submission beyond which one’s visa application would be summarily cancelled unless one had a very good reason – and the emphasis was placed on ‘very good’.

So in double-quick time I had to make an appointment with the approved agent, book a train fare and work out how to get the agent’s office once in Paris. Luckily the agent had an available appointment within the 14 day period and I booked a convenient inter-city train from Brive to take me there. I thought it sensible to buy a senior’s rail card as part of the fare as this gave a 30% discount for a year’s travel and only cost a bit more than the saving on this one fare alone but I was still just over 100€ out of pocket. I then had to pay for the Metro in Paris, another 7,90€, plus all-day parking at Brive, 9,70€ on top of that plus the cost of the biometric procedure, another 45€, so the cost of my visitor visa was beginning to mount up.

But there was another requirement, namely to undergo a medical examination by an approved medical examiner. Very generously, in comparison with the demand for biometrics, 28 days was allowed for this but the problem was that the medical examiners have been appointed by region and the one covering south-west France is in Bordeaux ie almost the geometrically opposite direction to Paris, meaning that during my visa application process I’d be travelling almost the whole length of France. But that wasn’t the most painful bit. The medical exam itself would be costing another hefty 200€!

I thought about taking the train from Périgueux to Bordeaux but in the end decided to go by car as I found that there was quite a bit of parking around the medical examiner’s office and that would avoid having to take a bus, or more likely a tram, there from the station. My plan worked out pretty well although not knowing how long the medical exam would take, I overpaid a few euros at the machine for on-street parking. Plus I also had to fork out a further 12,30€ at the lab just up the road for a blood test.

By now by my estimation my visa application had cost me in the realm of an additional 500€ over and above the actual cost of my Australian visit which I have to say I was not expecting and which came as quite a shock both physically and to my finances. However, at least I didn’t have to wait too long for what came next. The biometrics agent submitted their dossier to the Australian authorities over a week ago but the medical examiner only submitted his results one day ago, or two days on the day of my examination at most. Nevertheless, after being advised that applications could take some time to be processed, I received notification by email this morning that my visa had been approved.

This came as a considerable relief. I’d spent quite a considerable sum on air fares, car hire and hotel accommodation, all of which was at stake, before even considering my visitor visa and it would have been painful in every sense if for some reason I’d been turned down. But luckily I haven’t and I can now look forward to packing my bags and flying off to the other side of the world in the Autumn and getting to know my cousin who I’ve only spoken to on the phone and exchanged emails with in recent months and not seen face to face in over 70 years. I can’t wait and I’m sure it’ll all be worth it.

Sorry for the awful mis-spelling of Paris in the title of this post. But I’ll continue…

I had to go to Paris on 2nd July to provide my biometrics in the form of a photo and fingerprints to the Australian immigration authorities in support of my visitor visa application. This was not the best thing to be doing in the middle of ‘la Canicule’, the hottest heatwave for many years that had been dominating the French news for several days, but having made the necessary appointment and travel arrangements I had no choice.

So I was up at 5.30 am and after a cold shower and a quick breakfast I was off to Brive to catch the 7.56 am train to Paris Austerlitz. As is usually the case, the train arrived and departed dead on time and I was able to purchase a ‘café au lait’ and a quick snack during the 4 1/2 hour journey, with the train also arriving dead on time at Austerlitz.

So so far, so good. I’d already worked out and written down my itinerary so as to avoid any unnecessary mistakes and delays – Metro Line C at Austerlitz, four stops to Les Invalides, then change to RER Line 13 Direction St Denis Université and nine stops to Porte de Saint-Ouen in Clichy. I then had a 1 1/2km walk to my final destination, the office of VFS Global on the Boulevard du Général Leclerc.

Usually walking such a distance wouldn’t have bothered me – I’ve been doing much longer distances in Istanbul for example – but I knew that it was going to be challenging in the temperature and even more so on the way back, but off I went using my Waze satnav on my phone in order to get to my 2.20 pm appointment. I had about 1 hour and 50 minutes in total following my arrival in Paris so I had plenty of time to get to my destination, but it sure was hot and there was not a lot of shade.

Is the next shot of the highest graffiti in Paris, if not the whole of France?

I arrived at my destination with time to spare albeit by that time suffering rather in the heat. After taking the lift to the sixth floor I was greeted by a message on VFS’s office door saying that the office was closed for the whole of July and I and an Iraqi gentlemen were both bemused by this as we both had appointments within the coming few minutes.

Luckily, an attractive, tall, blonde young lady in a short skirt and on towering heels then turned up to open the door that we’d been banging on and took us with her into the office. I then received some bad news. She told me that as well as bringing my passport I should also have brought the letter I’d received from the Australian immigration authorities by email confirming their demand for biometrics. Without it she said that she could not process my application and I’d have to return with it.

It was my own fault as I should have read the letter more thoroughly but she said that I should search for it in my email or try to download another copy from the Australian web site while she processed the Iraqi. I was unsuccessful on both counts but as the office was closed to the general public and therefore not busy, she said she’d see what she could do by searching out my details on the immigration authority’s system.

By now, following my walk from the station I felt as though I was in a sauna and my shirt was becoming wringing wet. She offered me a drink of water from their machine which turned out not to be cooled (yuck!) and after several minutes she returned beaming. She said that she’d found my details and would be able to take my biometrics after all which was a great relief to me given how far I’d come and how much the trip had cost me.

She turned out to be Russian with a father in Crimea who has terminal cancer and became a bit tearful when she told me about it and how difficult it was finding a way to get back to see him, possibly for the last time. After she’d finished I gave her a hug and a ‘bissous’ which she didn’t object to before giving my face a splash of cold water in the toilet and departing back into the heat of the afternoon.

The next two shots were taken at Porte de Vincennes on my walk back to the Metro at Porte de Sain-Ouen (the final image) from where I returned to Austerlitz via the same route on which I’d come.

Once again, the 4.28 pm from Austerlitz left dead on time and despite receiving a message that it would be delayed by at least 20 minutes en route, also arrived dead on time at 9.03 pm at Brive. It only took a minute or two to pick up my car from the station car park (for what I thought was a very reasonable 9.70€ for the day) and another hour to get home again. So mission accomplished and what a relief to throw all of my clothes into the washing machine and myself under a cold shower. Now just Bordeaux next week for a medical.