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Sunday 1 June 2014

Something Nasty in the Field

Dahlings did not expect to blog again so soon but had to share this as part of my personal trauma therapy.

I have a phobia about snakes.

I just saw a snake in Real Life while walking Monty Dog.

Serves me right for my post about the deadly yellow tree snak http://blightyworld.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/hi-boy-won-here-i-am-doing-writing.html
So I am plodding along and suddenly notice right next to me by the hedge a grey snake coiled up in a figure of eight asleep in the sun. It's all a bit dreamlike. I don't scream or react, my mammalian brain thinks oh snake and I keep walking and keep walking and hope to goodness the dog does not decide to play with his new friend but luckily he does not even notice and I keep walking and walking and then start saying yuck, yuck, yuck.

When I have put a couple of fields between me and the Thing I phone Mr Blighty who is at a football tournament with Boy 2 and tell him and he says it's just a grass snake and I say, no it was grey and huge, it must be an anaconda, and Mr B gets all technical and nitpicky and points out anacondas are not native to Buckinghamshire and I say, well, there are lots of cheap flights these days...

And I carry on walking and feel better and then I see a red kite drifting on the warm air currents and I remember what the window cleaner who talks more than cleans told me: they like carrion, so if they swoop down and pick something up and it's alive, they drop it and once they dropped a snake on his patio...so now I feel much worse, am convinced the red kite is going to drop the snake on my head, so I walk along hunched over with one hand round the back of my neck to stop it going down my back and one hand on my head and taking tiny steps, so I look like a hundred year old woman...

And I am grateful the annoying teen Boy 1 is not with me because if he had picked it up or poked at it, he may be my dearly loved first born but I would definitely knock his teeth out...

And no, I did not stop to take a photo!!


So, it's important not to over react.  Here's the plan:

We sell the house and buy a tiny flat in Marble Arch London which should be suitably urban so as to avoid any snakes in the wild (note to self: check situation re London Zoo escapees)

Boys 1 and 2 to attend inner London comprehensive

Monty Dog needs the country life so he will go to Eton

I know all the lovely Aussie ladies will think I am a total wuss, which I am.  I can still remember their serpenty anecdotes on Faux Fuchsia's blog along the lines of   " so I was in the car with my baby and opened the door and a black mamba slivered in so I chopped its head off with an axe" and, my personal favourite, " I saw a massive rattler next to the gas cylinders outside and I was about to shoot it when my dad said geez, you shoot that cylinder, the whole house will go up.."

But here in our cosy little pocket of rural England this is what passes for peril.

Right, if you need me, I be indoors, in my wellies with my anorak hood up, looking at London flats and the Eton entrance requirements.

16 comments:

  1. You dag Blighty! Your imagination is deadly, but I love it.
    Cindy F

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    1. What is a dag? is it a good thing?? As I was too scared to take a photo Mr B and the boys think I made it up

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  2. Yikes - nothing worse than a snake encounter to spoil one's daily walk. Not sure if English snakes are poisonous, but Australian ones certainly are. You must cultivate the habit of constantly scanning the ground in front of you. Bad for the posture, but needs must. Warm sunny days = snakes round these parts.

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    1. Yikes Patricia, Australia is a very dangerous place. Here very very rare to see a snake and the only poisonous one is an adder; the one I saw was grey so probably was a grass snake but I wasn't going to look closely! My phobia isn't based on fear of being bitten I just hate the way they look, evils and no legs, yuck...

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  3. Oh dear Blighty, not good about the snake. Here in Australia we are well versed in snake avoidance. You should adopt these strategies while walking around your garden/ woods and village to avoid further problems - wear your Wellies at all times, even in the middle of a boiling hot Summer. Walk very slowly, with loud footsteps, as the snakes feel the vibrations and will get out of your way. Hopefully. In order that they hear you (they are quite deaf), you need to make a very loud noise. Talking to yourself loudly or singing loudly is advised while doing the stomping walking mentioned before. I promise you will never see another snake again. And possibly not any other local Villagers/ neighbours either.
    So glad you are back and blogging! xx

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  4. Dear Heidi, your comment is very funny! Thank you! Good advice, which I can easily follow as I am now Old and Embarrassing. Boy 1 does a good impression of me walking the dog , talking to the dog nonstop and then calling for him in a really daft falsetto voice and saying things like "Monty, come! Chewing chompers!!"

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  5. I'm so glad you are back to blogging as I've missed the laughs....that, and I won't have to resort to stalking you on Pinterest anymore.

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    1. Hi Sally, you can still stalk me on Pinterest if you like! Don't forget to enter Ye Olde Booke Give Away in the previous post! Please!

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    2. I always (sometimes) do as I'm told.

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    3. Certainly round here no one ever does what they are told - Boys 1 and 2 and Monty Dog ignore all instructions at all times, it's their default position

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  6. you are back on my roll, keeps those posts and amusing anecdotes going, we have all missed you! When I come to England next can you pls make plans for us to go to Chatsworth? I do miss you xxxx

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    1. Quelle honneur to be again on your roll! I miss you too and long to be entertained by your witty stories and hilarious pronouncements..who can forget "leopard is a neutral" and "I never met a sequin I could not connect with emotionally". but please don't bring Danvers, she scowls at me and always dusts manically anything I have just touched..unsettling

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  7. Oh dear. I remember your having a hissy fit when the boys were holding snakes at Whitehouse Farm. Good job you had Monty Dog to look after you.

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    1. Yay, you did it! You commented! I feel very honoured, in fact I am tearing up right now, having my own Gwyneth at the Oscars moment...that Farm scenario was a nightmare! Yuck! Hate snakes! xxxxxxxx

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  8. Dear Mrs Blighty, My girls and I watched with horrified and then quite astonished fascination as a python fell from the tree next to the breakfast buffet coiled around a parrot which he consumed. Only in Queensland... love Lindaxxx

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    1. Linda - YIKES! how awful! I suppose he was busy with his own breakfast buffett, poor parrot was the Special of the Day

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