1st June 2013 Mission of Mercy

A mission of mercy today for my grandson Tommy, or rather for Tommy's snake! Tommy has been staying with us for a week and bought his pet corn snake with him. After a week it needs feeding so combined a bike ride, with a trip to the pet shop to buy a dead baby mouse.

The Swan family

Regular visitors to this blog may recall that on the 14th May I posted news about a pair of nesting swans near an car repair shop at Warwick. Today, Tommy and I went along the canal to get to Leamington and lo and behold, right near to where the nesting swans were, were this family. The pair and seven cygnets, all looking very healthy. What a nice surprise to see them.

The dead mouse shop

Tommy's corn snake eats dead mice, well, the snake is only about a foot long and is quite thin so an adult mouse would be far too big for it. Pet shops are not allowed to sell live animals as food so there is a trade, or so I have found out today, for dead baby mice, which are deep frozen and hygienically packaged. I had to carry this thing back home in my pocket. Seeing the snake eat it was an experience in itself, how that tiny snake ate that comparatively big meal I shall never know. Didn't take long.

Well, that was not really relevant to a cycling blog, but it was an interesting day all told. By the way, we did just over 8 miles fetching Trevor's (yes, that his name) weekly meal.