Snakes alive! This will give you a hissy fit
This time last week, i had just set out on a walk in the italian countryside when i was confronted by a snake. it was well over 2ft long, with vivid diamond shapes on its back.
i have always been told that most snakes are harmless, and that they are far more frightened of you than you are of them.
so i did what anyone would have done in the circumstances: i ran for my life.
The next day, still in italy, i had just finished a game of tennis, and was about to remove my tennis shoes, when friends who were still playing managed to hit a ball out of the court and into the long grass. ‘Don’t worry! i’ll get it!’ i said, setting off without bothering to re-tie my shoe-laces.
Mindful of the previous day’s fright, i walked very tentatively up to the grass, and then poked about in it with a long stick.
suddenly, i caught a glimpse of something very long, thin and speckled attached to my right shoe. ‘Aaaaargh!’ i screamed, just like the girl in The Exorcist, and then i ran like the wind, not stopping to look back.
it was only when i reached the safety of the tennis court, and looked down again, that i realised i had been running scared of my own shoelace. ‘B-b-but what if it hAD been a snake??!!!’ i said, trying to muster some sympathy.
‘But it wasn’t,’ said my cold-hearted friends. ‘it was a shoelace.’
i hope my own happy ending does nothing to deter everyone from remaining vigilant at all times: snakes can strike when you are least expecting them.
Around the same time as i was being ruthlessly pursued by my own shoelace, a five-year-old boy in southend was lifting the lid of his family’s loo only to find a 3ft royal python in residence.
‘he was frantic and shaking and i could tell something was wrong,’ said the boy’s mother, Laura Cowell.
Personally, i would have rushed out of the house, locked the door, and posted a For sale sign outside. But Mrs Cowell is made of stronger stuff.
‘i had to use a broom handle to lift the lid, then out popped its head and its tongue came out as well.’ Mrs Cowell wasted no time in banging the lid back down, and then she placed weights on it. As luck would have it, there was a store in nearby Leigh- on- sea called scales And Fangs which, as its name suggests, specialises in things snakey. Billing itself as ‘ the largest independent Reptile specialist outlet in south Essex’, scales And Fangs promises ‘next day deliveries on most lines including Frozen and Live food’. so Mrs Cowell got in touch with the store’s specialist, a Mr Ethan Pinion, who nipped round and removed the python with an instrument designed for that obscure purpose. it smelt ‘a bit toilety’, he said, but was otherwise in good shape. ‘ it most likely came up the U- bend,’ he concluded. it later emerged that the python answers to the name of Reggie. This is odd in itself, as you would expect the python to be called Ethan Pinion, and the snake-handler to be called Reggie. But things have clearly gone a bit topsy-turvy in south Essex. Anyway, the story has another happy ending, at least for Reggie, if not for the hamsters and mice of south Essex. After his photograph appeared in the media, Reggie was re-united with his owner, a Mr Tim Yardley, who had been moving house when Reggie hot-footed it. During the move, one of the air vents on the enclosure got dislodged and Reggie seized the opportunity to escape. ‘ We believe from there he made his way into the toilet system,’ says Mr Rob Yeldham, owner of scales And Fangs. ‘he was out for about two months before he finally made his way up into Laura’s toilet where her son unfortunately came face to face with him.’ Of all the pressures and pitfalls offered by modern life, a python in one’s loo must surely be among the most upsetting. inevitably, there are those who maintain that pythons are affectionate and full of character. No doubt these people would also suggest that pythons enjoy amateur theatricals and take a keen interest in 19th century watercolours. But for me a snake is a snake is a snake. Unless, of course, it is a shoelace.