We went today, my young daughter and I, to the local garden centre in Agde ( in l'Herault ) as she'd seen a poster for 'the reptile guy' who, sure enough, had set up his collection of weird and wonderful scaly beasts. Not normally my cup of tea, but I do like to do my share of parenting when the cooking/cleaning/washing lady is unavailable. She was doing something with the teen daughter, can't remember what, being one of those 'yes Dear types'.
Once we got there, me and Thingy, all ‘camera-ed up’ were both, absolutely overjoyed. You could have been in the rain forest, or dessert, or wherever these things live. Dinky little micro frogs hoping around, moving crunchy things, animals that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Sci-fi movie. One green jobby looked like a to scale version of the underwater gargling creature form ‘Sting-ray’/Sting-ray’ ( For the younger folk, Godzilla ) It was really fantastic. Placcy boxes full of tarpaulins damn’ this predictive spell checker! TERRAPINS, ( mmm crunchy ) snails, puppy dog tails, a veritable Cambodian breakfast, a sort of Delirium Tremens, but in a safe place.
Obviously, Monsieur le Steve Backshall wannabe was helpful and informative, but he probably wanted to shift some Critters lest they expired on the way back to Chez lui. Now some of the coiled up little mini serpents were a hundred 'e' s a pop and you couldn't have lifted the giant turtle without a hoist.
So I, thinking it’s almost ‘Bah Humbug’ Season, picked up a box of crunchy things marked 4.50 euros, rattled them and asked “what about these darling they’re cute!” raising my eyebrows at Attenborough’s Gallic cuz, whilst thinking there’s a box full here for 4.50, if a couple end up going to the great crunchy box in the sky, no probs. Turns out, they were called (I don’t know what ) but they look like leaves, wobble like a praying Mantis, and eat Rose bush leaves. Handy, I thought, we have one of those au Jardin. OK chief, carton of those to go, s’il vous plait. Oui Monsieur, combien? Quoi, my heart sank, 4.50 each! and there’s no meat on them.
Ah well, in for a Centime! Little one had already named him, ‘Jack.’ Can’t show any pics of Jack the leaf-like leaf-eater, he’s sleeping next to the radiator, in his ‘maintainer l’humidité’ micro climate boit. So all’s well, we’ve saved the planet, little one is busily hand crafting a mini ‘lead’ for walkies, teen daughter hates me, the cooking lady is cooking. I’m back on me Mac, ah what a perfect day.