Saturday 24th December – Christmas Eve shenanigans

Remember folks: do not swim with alligators

Time for some pre-Christmas damage limitation exercise!  The bike trail was a nice flat 3.5 miler.  Palm trees, pine trees, mangroves, swamps and sand sum it up nicely.  We went out in the morning but it was pretty humid as you’d expect.  Cycling along, minding my own business, Simon (aka ‘the spotter’) suddenly shouted ‘snake’!  Instead of slamming the brakes straight on I looked around avidly for the snake…. That I’d just managed to run over under my front tyre!  I was too close behind Simon and ran over the poor thing’s tail before I could do anything about it.  The snake reacted by retaliating and coiling up towards my right ankle.  I threw myself off my bike to the left and then the petrified creature slithered off into the undergrowth.  I was shaken but more importantly I was mortified that I may have done some permanent damage to the snake.  It looked like a corn snake to me because it was an orangey colour with a zig-zag pattern on its back so I wasn’t worried that I had been in danger.  What if I’d damaged its digestive system?  I would just have to hope that the snake had gained an excellent near-death story to tell its friends rather than any permanent damage.

Remember folks: if you see a panther, attempt to look 'large' and fight back if you have to.

Having regained my composure, we continued cycling towards the area where we hoped to see our first ‘gators in person.  We were lucky today, the heat meant that the ‘gator we saw was bathing in the water.  We kept an eye out for its other half but only saw the one:

Spot the 'gator

He didn't even want to pose in a photograph with me.....

Adventure over, we had an easy afternoon.  Simon had befriended Steve, who was here with his partner Barbara.  Steve had come over to borrow an axe (no, we don’t have an axe) and they got into conversation about guitars and music amongst other things.  Steve plays guitar in a band and Barbara is a scrabble fanatic.  Of course we got on well!  The activity in the screen room this evening was just ‘ice-cream night’.  So, once I’d gone and collected us a couple of scoops, we invited Steve and Barbara over to ours for Christmas Eve evening.  Steve brought his guitar over so he and Simon could have a jam.  Barbara brought home-made brownies over.  We provided the fire for toasting marshmallows and the magnetic travel-scrabble set (note: we didn’t toast the scrabble set).  It was a lovely evening.  Steve and Barbara were great company and, although we were thoroughly beaten at scrabble, it was great to have a sociable evening, even if it was a world away from the normal Christmas Eve we would have had back in England (who am I kidding? if we were back home we would’ve had a very similar evening at the Dawsons’ house with booze and board games!).