At nightfall, garden snails began to come out of the woodpile. I found one spiralling up a twig, stretching out its wet elephant skin. Another swung its body to the side, as if it was having a touch of slug envy, and was trying to dislodge its bulky encumbrance of a shell. One was sliding up the patio window and I went indoors to view it from beneath.
Pressed smooth against the glass, the muscles of its body (technically, its foot) rippled as waves might lap over a shallow, sandy beach, each wave a pulse of movement. Any slight change in direction caused the twisting part of the foot to crease, creating a filmy cellophane effect. What language did its tentacles speak? They appeared to be directionless conductors, randomly sampling the air, out of synch with each other, having no bearing on the animal’s purposeful course.
The rim of its shell was visible from this angle as a saddle. In the spring, a snail had stuck on the glass for three dry days and nights, a mucus seal keeping it moist. As time went on, its body withdrew further into the shell. On the fourth day, it had gone from the window.
My eye was drawn to the goldfish opening and closing of the snail’s tiny mouth on the glass, and I reached for a hand lens to get a closer look. It seemed to me that it had a three-cornered mouth. As it dilated, the tongue-like radula popped out, like a sucker, or the top of a toadstool. It stamped the glass with what I knew to be a corroding rasp, for the radula is equipped with rows of teeth – invisible under this hand lens – and it was grazing the glass for algae with big licks. I thought of my baby courgette plant, planted by day and reduced in one night to a stump.
Over the edge of the window went the snail and off, bound for the vertical plains of the house. Instinct would return it to a place of dampness at dawn.
Follow Country diary on Twitter:@gdncountrydiary
