Needed a nerve steadying pint late Saturday night....but the bar was closed. I'll tell you why....apologies folks that this isn't football related. Mrs Plym had by Friday finished planting out about an hundred plants in the two borders at the front of the bungalow......Saturday everything looked great and her handiwork looked quite attractive....it was a reasonably warm day and we had a downpour of rain late afternoon. About dusk time I looked out the front window as I was about to close the venetian blinds....something didn't look right about the grass.....it looked darker than usual and seemed to be moving ! I opened the front door and couldn't believe what I saw......the warm damp atmosphere had brought out from the shrubs either side of the front garden....SNAILS....not one or two....not fifty or sixty.....but HUNDREDS.....Mrs Plym joined me at the front door and we both gazed in amazement.....it was like a marching army.....and marching towards Mrs Plym's lovely new plants that we had bought and spent a few weeks nurturing in the green house. By now it was nearly dark.....so I found a torch and armed with Sainsbury carrier bags we started to pick them up....some had already reached the borders and looked prepared to strip bare our lovely new plants....they where our first priority.....then we moved slowly up the lawn picking them up with help from the torch to see them in the dark.....I had to get more bags and the torch was starting to dim by now....we checked the lawn again after we had finished and under the shrubs as well.....by now it was gone 11pm.....I wondered if any of the neighbours had seen us wandering around in the dark with a torch.....well none of them had called for the local nut house to come and take us away in straight jackets so that was alright....I must admit that I did check the lawn before I went to bed incase a back-up battalion of snail re-enforcments had appeared...but all seemed ok.....I kid you not we must of picked up between two and three hundred....I put the them inside a couple of more bags and knotted them tight....I then put them in a plastic box with a lid....the next day I got rid of them in a council skip.....we could of stood on them but that would have left quite a mess on the lawn....where are the birds when you need them....all tucked up for the night I expect by then.....I've developed a nervous twitch now when dusk time comes around.....bought some snail and slug pellets yesterday. I'll still have that pint please if I may.
That's creepy Plym. ...think you need more than a pint! Though saying that could have made 75 quid or so here in Malta as a local delicacy but not my cup of tea.
Put down pellets the next day....nipped out and bought some.....a few snails trying their luck Monday evening.
Get yourself a hedgehog and they will do the work for you and it's at least natural. Or learn to do the River Dance. Just wipe your feet before going back indoors.
Stop trying to get me into trouble Joe. I would never say such a thing. I need a drink now to steady the nerves. As nobody else is here I'll just get my own then.
He looks like somebody you'd see in a Crocodile Dundee movie. Plym ditched his bag of snails in a skip HP so we never had a chance to garlic any of them. That bloke Bar Grills would have had them on a fire in a pan. Have to see if we can get him in as a bar person.
Had my youngest grandaughters today after school. One of them was out in the garden doing rolly polly's and suddenly let out a shriek and ran off round the back of the house. When I caught up with her and asked what was wrong she said she had nearly rolled on a snail and she didn't like them. Apparently because it was looking at her. Stop dumping your snails in my garden plym I know it was you. I have to say snails as a subject is not something I've done twice in one week very often.
if the snails are still available (or recoverable) i'll have them. You need them to disgorge their stomach and intestine contents prior to cooking (normally by letting them feed on dry bread) and for those that don't like them with garlic butter I am assured they are rather nice stir fried or mashed up on toast.......... Anyway, large glass of red for me (1st for a couple of weeks), one all round, and a packet of snail scratchings please.
