Snake Update

Hmmmm...the large Rat Snake is still on the loose but is being kept at bay by the guards who I have put on an hourly 'Snake Patrol'. They seem happy they have something other to do than fall asleep and open and close the gate but, as yet, they still haven't caught the culprit.

However, they have competition in the snake catching stakes and I'll hedge my bets on who will win this battle and it'll be the latest visitor to our garden.

A couple of days ago I was horrified to see what I thought at first was the most enormous rat I had ever seen sniffing around on one of our window ledges and then I saw its long bushy tail and thought...that ain't NO rat. Straight onto the computer, Google and Wikipedia and I deduced with my powerful sleuth like determination that it was indeed a Mongoose. Where there is a snake you will eventually find a Mongoose, and Mongooses fight snakes for sport. Even deadly Cobras. But we haven't had one of those...yet.

So Much to Blog About...

But I've been a bit short of time as I've been making a bit of a social life for myself, Wayhey!! It's been a busy couple of weeks and I have lots to tell, but I am very much behind.

Sometimes (actually alot of the time!) events and experiences happen and if you don't immediately put fingers to keys you lose the gist and the humour, or, the meaning about the moments you've experienced....or, maybe that's just me and I need to do more brain exercises! I have a lots of started but unfinished posts...I will try harder!

In the meantime...,we have had MORE SNAKES

Tonight I heard a big commotion and alot of banging of sticks, I looked out of the window and just had to go and investigate.

For my perusal the night shift guards present me with the headless corpse of a 'Tree Snake'. Tiny in comparison to Hissing Sid but it's bite is 100x more dangerous apparently.

"Oh and by the way", I'm 'sort of' told in broken English with a splashing of Tamil, yesterday there was a Rat Snake in the garden...OK, I heard 'Rat Snake'. Got that, thank you. Could YOU PLEASE LET ME KNOW OF THESE EVENTS AS THEY HAPPEN rather than retrospectively. It would be very helpful as although non-venemous, they are big. will scare the pants off me and the children and no-one likes a snake bite either way.

The Demise of Hissing Sid

I had been hearing rumours all week that there was a snake (non poisonous but apparently a bite would render you in hospital for a couple of days) on the loose in or around our garden but Kumar had been so very reassuring so as not to worry me I'm sure, that I'd almost forgotten about it.

After a lazy Sunday morning we decided to venture out for some lunch, we were just about to climb into the car when there is a loud shout and one of the guards comes running from one side of the house. There is a flurry of activity as the other two come running with some very large sticks that they've obviously been storing for just this type of event. Murasoli leaps into action and it was at this point I realised it was a SNAKE! It attempted to make a dash for it, OMG how fast are they?! Unable to escape it returned to the carport to hide behind some 'stuff'.

Murasoli shouts to me to go inside. Are you kidding? I want to see this beast, but from a safe distance obviously!

I won't go into details about what happened next but it would be fair to say that I saw a whole new side to our well mannered, soft and gentle Murasoli today. However he was quite the hero of the hour and Hissing Sid is no more.

Since this episode we have taught Ellie a 'Snake Drill'. She's hardly ever on her own outside but better to be safe.

Snakes Are Like Buses

Nothing for ages then they all turn up at once. It's the time of year I'm told.

There were 5 or 6 this morning, non venomous but can inflict a bite apparently and they are teeny tiny, if you didn't know what you were looking for you'd miss them.

When I mentioned the big one that Dileep had seen to the Head Guard, he laughed, 'Dileep a good actor Madam'. Hmmmm thought as much.

SNAKE!

Apparently our first (that we know of) snake was spotted in our garden....errrr about 15 days ago! Thanks for telling us guys, would have been nice to know.

DH and assorted drivers, gardener and guards (I'll bet he's just loving all that help!!) are today building our climbing frame in the garden. I went out to offer refreshments and morale support, for about 5 minutes and Dileep, one of the guards says to me 'Snake Madam, one night by the generator, THIS BIG', he says with arms outstretched very wide. So girls, we all know that it was, in all likelihood, actually just a small snake don't we? That's what I'm hoping anyway.