Playing in the garden the boys stumbled across a happy group of snails, looked into their little eyes (Can snails look in 2 directions at once?) and decided they looked lonely.
"Can we keep them Mum?"
I know lots of people happily keep ants, snails, spiders, caterpillars - all manner of creepy crawlies - happy and healthy in their homes in the name of science. There's a whole shelf in John Lewis filled with kits which essentially comprise a plastic pot with holes in and an instruction book.
Two years in a row we have attempted to keep caterpillars. Picture the wondrous glory of a butterfly as it unfolds its wings for the first time and we release it into the garden.
Now scrap that picture and imagine death and tears, with me googling 'How do I know if my chrysallis is dead' and dropping handfuls of the little things into a jug of water to screams of "No Mummy don't drown them, they're not witches!" Note: if they float, they're dead. If they sink, get them out of there quickly - they are definitely not witches. I hardly need to say that all seven of our carefully nurtured chrysalises were floaters.
The boys were philosophical (I think they still suspected drowning) but I was devastated. I'd tried so hard - printed out instructions, checked food, moisture, temperature, hanging positions ... to no avail.
With that form there can be no pet snails in this house. I'm guilt-ridden enough as it is. I pulled the "they live with their family in the tree" line and so the snails were delivered back from whence they came.
Every 5 minutes the oven beeper would sound and K&W would drop whatever we were doing (mid-sentence while reading, mid-mouthful while eating lunch) and race outside to check on the snails. I found it endearing for 2 hours then annoying for a further 3.
We did find out why snails shells don't come off (muscles and ligaments) and that they poo from a hole very near their head so they don't have to move their shell too far to... er... let it out. Ugh.
With no help from me (honest) our snails had moved location by the next day, probably into a hungry sparrow but I didn't mention that ....
