Life at a snail's place

Charis loves unusual pets! At the moment she has her fish and cat, Ollie, and she & Niamh share the guinea pigs. In the past she successfully reared butterflies, tadpoles to frogs, and a stick insect, and she loves snails. One of her dreams is to have hissing cockroaches ... another to have a snake and bearded dragons ~ it's all the films she watches!!

Each year she 'rescues' snails from the garden ~ this year's adopted snails come from my parent's garden and our own, so she has 2 large & 2 small snails. I was a bit shocked at one of the small ones which is being rather amorous with a larger one! Talk about an education!! I never realised ...

Next door and downstairs we have what is known in social housing terms as a scatter flat. When an individual or family becomes homeless they first are put in B&B accomodation ~ this can mean a family of 5 has to live in one room for as much as 6 months, sometimes more. Then they are moved to tempory accomodation, a scatter home, for anything from 6 ~ 24 months, sometimes more. In the time we have lived here we have had some rather choice individuals living there, from fanatical evangelicals living by faith, to hardened criminals and drug dealers. Sadly we get far more of the latter! I often say that it's like a busman's holiday coming home from work! Anyway, the last. Few days there has been a lovely chatty gent replacing the fence on behalf of the owner. The flat is owned and rented by the owner to the Highland Council. Today we finally met the owner, a lovely guy, who was lifting the turf with his mate to lay chips. He says he'll be moving back in next year so is starting to get everything in order.

What has all this got to do with snails?? I cheekily asked for a bit of turf for Charis's snail tank and, bless him, the owner's mate got her to bring the tank round, measured it and cut a turf specially. One snail in particular seemed very pleased with his new surrroundings!!!

And, nowt to do with snails ... though Charis, bless her, often lives life at a snail's pace ... we got Charis's Primary 1 report card! I am so very proud of how well she has done in P1 given Gaelic is not her first language! She seems to have a flair for Maths, so here's hoping that continues! Closely followed by art and PE! Watch this space, folks, who knows what she could do with that combo!!