I was sent a delightful film of a snail crossing a slatted bench that had flaky paint on. It had to bridge between two slats to cross. +++++
With a start Macawber opened his tightly closed eyes and looked down to see what had wakened him from his perch on the back of a park bench. He was shocked to see Sylvia trailing over a slat on the bench and wondered how much effort it had taken for here to get that far. The curious magpie was pleased to see that Sylvia was fully dressed as instructed and the state of the shell itself was immaculate now after her unfortunate gravel incident a month or two ago.
He called out to her but Sylvia either failed to hear him or chose to ignore his 'caw'.
With a big sigh he hopped down onto the bench onto the second slat and Sylvia pricked her antennae up to see what had blocked out the light. She was getting used to the daylight hours and found it difficult to see now in the dark. Sylvia had a difficult manoeuvre to perform as it was and she hardly needed to do it in the gloom.
It was her turn to tut now and hearing her displeasure Macawber noticed the shadow he cast upon her. “Sorry about that Sylvia. I wanted to know what you are doing so far from home,” he commented and asked, “more to the point, why are you parked upon a bench?”
With one tentacle up and the other one down she said, “If you notice, Macawber, there is a huge swathe of gravel back there and I thought if I climbed up the bench I would find a clear grassy or paved area to crawl over rather than get stuck up again in the gravel.” Sylvia looked down with much rue and smiled saying, “I did not take into account that the bench would be flaky so it has taken me an extraordinary time to get anywhere and when I did get to the edge of the slat there is a huge crevasse for me to calculate my way over,” and she poked her head over the edge as if to prove the point.
“Hmmm,” said Macawber in a thoughtful manner and watched as Sylvia tried all manner of positions to bridge the gap. Although it had to be said that there was a cross bar and the base of the slat which she could crawl down onto in order to bridge the gap. He was about to comment on this when Sylvia did a most unusual thing, it was so unusual that Macawber, who had flown onto the back of the bench, looked down on her in amazement.
Sylvia leaned over the gap touching the other side with the tip of an antennae and laid it to rest. Macawber was enthralled at her antics because following that the snail flipped over, rolling over on her grounded antennae and ended up resting with her tail top on one side of the gap and both of her antennae on the other side. Macawber wondered what the view was like for her after the snail had somersaulted over. He noticed that she was now resting on the top of her shell with her soft and silver body in full view for the world to see touching the bench tip to tail.
If he was a game bird he would have gambled that Sylvia was going to roll around again but instead she turned on her side moving her antennae from the bench surface and rested her chin there instead. After this she dangled her tail down the cross bar and tensed herself in order to pull the shell over the bridge just like the movement of a caterpillar but sideways. It was rather disconcerting for Macawber to watch and all he could think of was the state of her shell if she ever got off there alive.
Sylvia had dragged her shell over the bridge making a furrow in the peeling paint which built up under her shell and protected it from being scratched. Macawber could see the flaky paint pilling up each side of her shell and realised that she was not going to need some medical intervention for her shell after all. Minutes passed and Sylvia put in a huge effort which Macawber could sense and see, then she pulled herself over into a more upright position whilst hauling her shell up the side of the slat until it was upon the top of it whereupon she hauled her remain body parts, namely her tail over the top.
Once she was up Macawber could see her rapidly moving body as she puffed and panted and he noticed the green paint flaking off the side of her shell but not all of it. He felt obliged to hop down and pick off the remaining paint then phwhoof it with his gentle breath. Macawber would have sung at the top of his voice with relief but he figured that it would not only startle Syllvia but also deafen her. He thought for a moment after phwoofing to move the final piece and wondered where her ears actually were because there was nothing visible. Then he remembered that he too did not have ears to envisage so he wondered why this was.
Sylvia was wriggling in a most uncomfortable manner and he asked, “What is the matter, Sylvia, you should be resting after all that exertion and I have to say that it was the most amazing feat of bridge building I have ever seen.” He smiled at her fondly as he waited for a response from his friend.
