"To begin at the beginning" of my epic journey with Cornu aspersum: I was emptying my dustbin one day in April when I noticed two snails clinging to the inside. Back then I thought little of it and assumed they were dead but somehow staying in place. The next week I observed that both had moved some distance but were still close together. Being of an anthropomorphic outlook (I talk to my stone frog ornament) I named them Dr. Sam (Johnson) and James (Boswell). Once they had individual identities, they needed better homes. I have no photographs of them in the bin but I am privileged to be able to show you an aesthetically pleasing picture of its outside.
Having looked online and seen the horrendous price of an outdoor vivarium, I went up town to one of those bargain shops and bought a storage box made of translucent plastic with a black lid and lugged it home on my rollator (the first of my Odyssean sufferings on this voyage). It measures 60 cms in length and 40 in width and height. The next step was ventilation. Snails do not need much oxygen and lifting the lid once a day would probably suffice but I wanted to be sure. I heated a metal skewer in a gas flame until it was literally red hot and made several holes in the plastic sides but not the ends. (They will be end on in the winter open-fronted shed and I didn't want it to rain in). Once the summer warmed up and the black lid became hot I bought a small fake ivy trellis from the same shop to cover it and secured the ends. Unfortunately the lid warped slightly as the temperature rose but I found heavy glass kitchen chopping boards (guess where) which (miraculously) fitted when two were placed on top of the box.
The keen-eyed amongst you will have noticed Roman numerals for 2: appropriate because the Romans were partial to Cornu aspersum and I ended up with 3 vivariums (vivaria would be correct Latin but pedantic). Each cost in all about £30 and the snails tell me they are very, very happy. I then spent a fretful morning tangling with the higher mathematics and calculated that I could, theoretically, keep 15 or more garden snails in each but I prefer them to have space and every hotel has about 8 guests. This one is propped between a heavy iron chair and a bucket filled with water to stop it rocking in the wind and scaring its sensitive inhabitants.
The next stage is the filling of the inside, a fascinating artistic and practical challenge. Please join me then.
