There's a Snake in the Laundry!
Latest series of 8ight images and this weeks theme…
My Life and Other Animals – Two of 8ight
There’s a snake in the laundry! I heard the cry or words to that effect. I never realised Nurses knew such words. Well some, but not all.
A feeling of dread and nauseousness came over me, I perspired. Quite a bit actually. I knew that it would be my duty to stand up and live up to the title of honorary Queenslander that has been bestowed upon myself and get rid of it.
It was only a baby, ten inches long and the width of my little finger.
I don’t care! After consulting volume 38 of “1001 most venomous things to see in Australia if you want to die” I determined that it wasn’t listed.
So non venomous and brown with black markings, a python like head. It’s a baby python I cried. Totally harmless, it’s probably far more scared than we are. I doubt it.
So Eleven O’clock at night, armed with dustpan and brush, long sleeve shirt, skiing gloves, long pants, boots and socks tucked in. I scooped up the snake and threw it over the back paddock. Actually I hid behind the door whilst the English Nurse wearing only shorts and thongs (oh and a vest) grabbed the dustpan and brush from my quivering hand and threw the snake over the back paddock.
It came back two days later and hid under the Front Loader.
I thought it was quite brave of the English Nurse the way she stood and sorted out the washing, even unfolding my underwear before putting a load in.
That was the last we saw of the snake. Until three days later I noticed it was curled up fast asleep on top of a carton of my best Crown Lager. Quite cute but drastic measures as there was no beer in the fridge.
I didn’t even need shoes or pants, never mind a shirt. In one swift movement I had flicked it into a large Tupperware container the same type that you would use to marinate a baby Elephant. The cute baby Python looked quite lost. The beer was chilling nicely.
It’s now living down by the creek. I quite miss it really.
‘Children’s Python’
So called not because of any relationship to children, but in honour of John George Children, who was a curator of the zoological collection at the British Museum. As far as I am concerned there is no logical reason whether it is Zoological or not to keep snakes! Children’s Python. Far too small to eat children but if any are giving you real problems then I suggest a Anaconda.
Read all about them here. Children’s Pythons not Anacondas. Sorry!
POST SCRIPT to Nerve Endings in Ribbons.
This morning whilst wheeling my mountain bike towards the gate I noticed a head the size of a golf ball hiding in the grass beneath my feet. I only cut it yesterday. All of a sudden it leapt up on its haunches rather like those 1970’s Citroen cars with the funny active suspension. It revealed a body of scales and ran under the fence. It was some sort of ‘Water Dragon’
I quite like reptiles I just hate surprises. Unless they are gifts of Nikon 500mm f4 lenses that is.
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