Sleepy Snails

Dotted all over the cleared ground of the fire-break the large pale shells of past snails stand out against the dusty beige of the dry. The brittle chambers crack and roll  amongst the stones as I walk over them -they are too exposed and hot for anything else to make their homes in. I read that some aboriginal tribes used to chip their shells forming a sharp edge to make a sort of food grater,  so I tried but my efforts ended in an unusable crunch  – it obviously takes skill to become a stone age snail-shell shaper.

Any live mollusc would dessicate itself in 5 yards during the long dry period so until the storm they remained hidden dormant deep under rocks and earth. But responding to the early seep of damp into their subterranean chambers they all crawled out in the night, and turned out to be a glossy brown colour rather than white. I watched them slide sluggishly over the rocks as the sun came up, but like sleepers roused from a Sunday morning lie-in they were not impressed by the new morning. Their bodies were engaged but eyes not open. Not one of them put forth a stalk eye but trundled back into the darkness seemingly by instinctual groping for the earthy bedclothes, not to be seen again until it starts to rain properly in December.