Hard snail-life

As the temperatures have dropped and some rain has come in, the snails and slugs have decided it is safe for them to wake up from their estivation. Well, not everyone, whether it is because some are more diffident than others (can they?) or because what looks like an estivating snail is just a dead snail stuck on a top part of a straw (see first extra for a group of snails who still don't think it's time to wake up). In Italy snails wake up from hibernation in spring but then when the quicksilver starts boiling again they just make a mucuous door and close their mini-apartment during the warm months..for then to wake up briefly again in autumn. These short spells of awakeness have to be used to get on with all the vital things (second extra shows two slugs mating..nothing sexy about that), no wonder the lifecycle of a snail can last quite long, especially considering that sometimes they don't even bother to wake up during the short favourable periods and can remain asleep for years.
Sometimes I would like to estivate and hibernate

P.s. happy blip-autumn to everyone (and spring to those downunder) and thanks for your generous appreciation of yesterday's angelica constellation