Good morning! Or perhaps I should say good spring, or even good year. I’ve been asleep for the last few months and as the warm – well, warmish – sun soaks into me, it feels good to be alive and awake and ready for all the world can throw at me. Let’s make this the best spring ever!
Monday
That was a bit over the top, wasn’t it? I get that way after six months tangled up in the roots of a willow tree: the springtime world seems new-made for the delight of a hefty snake. What was the world like when I was snoozing? I know they call it winter. Dark and horrible, I suspect.
Tuesday
There are humans living all around me and none of them know I’m here. Yet I’m 6ft long: a living hosepipe of reptile. What would they think if they knew? Perhaps they wouldn’t believe it. Or wonder if I’d escaped from some weirdo’s collection. But I’m an echt British snake and I revel in my secrecy.
Wednesday
We snakes are good at keeping out of the way. In a way it’s what we’re built for: narrow places and silent movement. We really are the subtlest beasts in the field – or for that matter the pond and this wet stand of willows. We stow our paired organs like kidneys fore and aft, not side by side like less subtle folk.
Thursday
Well, I’d barely woken up into the springtime world and who should I meet but the most charming little fellow you’ve ever seen, half my size but beautifully marked, with the nattiest yellow collar. He’d been up and about for damn near three weeks and was full of the warmth of the sun. Cold-blooded? You do him a disservice. I can vouch for that.
Friday
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My fine size, hard won over the years, will allow me to produce an equally hefty clutch of eggs when the time comes. In the high summer I’ll find a likely spot – a compost heap is best – and there the eggs will reach bursting point: maybe 40 of them if all goes well. But right now I’m hungry.
Saturday
You can’t beat a good newt. And that, rest his soul, was a very good newt indeed: all the tastier for my winter-long fast. I sensed him on the far side of that big old pond, transferring the scent to that tingling spot in my mouth with my forked and flickering tongue. Bad news, old newt. I swam in leisurely undulations in his general direction. After that I was creeping along the pond’s edge as slow as a rush grows. Then in the blink of an eye – just an expression, I never blink myself – I shifted from slow to go-go-go. Bang! All over. I don’t do venom, it seems like cheating, and I don’t do constriction, don’t need it. I just grabbed. So now for a long digestive meditation: God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the serpentine world.
Grass snake CV
Lifespan Maybe 25 years
Eating habits All amphibians taste good
Hobbies Swimming, contemplation
Sexual preferences Small and dapper
Carl Corbidge / Alamy Stock Photo