No Snail is Safe

Spring started officially in Melbourne on the first of September. I generally held the belief that Australians were merely living up to the pioneering spirit, and held the attitude of “equinox, solstice, who needs it?”. But they obviously got it right, when you consider the fact that during the coldest part of winter (when we actually got down to freezing once or twice) the fruit tree started blooming. The winter flowers have been blooming all along, but don’t let that confuse the issue.

The trees have been budding, the bees have been appearing on window sills out of nowhere, and the occasional fly and mosquito buzz us to make sure we realise that they will be the dominant life form soon. The trio of magpies that sit expectantly outside our window seem to go their separate ways occasionally. Perhaps momma bird is about to tell her teenage children it’s time to go find their own bread crusts.

I’m not sure what the snails are up to. They didn’t show their shells much during the winter, but are once again using our front porch as a thoroughfare to go wherever it is that snails go. We have two shallow steps down, then a sort of moat which directs water away from the door in heavy rains, then two shallow steps up. This moat makes an ideal snail freeway. The problem is that a snail high speed are much slower than human speeds, and the snails are invariably overtaken – especially at night when you can’t them. It’s unfortunate, but I can differentiate between the crunch of a thin snail shell and that of leaf quite easily now.

Escargot, anyone?