Pets!

It all started out innocently enough with my usual morning jog through the neighbouring countryside... except that it's half-term week (no school for the kiddies) and Emily begged to come along (Amy stayed home with Grandma). I begrudgingly agreed - knowing that I wouldn't even get to the mile marker before Miss Fussy-Pants (Emily) would be whining to get out of the jogger stroller. Just as I predicted, she starting fussing just about the moment we got oustide the village...

It was then that I noticed the recent rains had washed in an abundance of rocks - well, they looked liked rocks at first - and I plotted to side-track Miss Fuss-Pot with a rock collection to entertain her for the duration of my jog.

In actuality, the "rocks" turned out to be snails. Even better! I collected a large one and a little "baby" one onto a stick and gave it to Emily to keep her quiet for the remainder of my run. And it worked! Although we had to stop once for a search and rescue mission for the little one who, according to Emily, "jumped" out. Once we returned home, both girls were eager to begin nesting in their new "pets." We used as much logic as we could before turning to Google (What the heck do snails eat?!)...

Hours later - after a trip to the library for research purposes and then over to a garden centre - we came home and built our very own terrarium to house our new little friends.

Emily named the snails. The littlest one is called Alexa, the middle-sized one is Sally (we found her out in our back garden whilst collecting pebbles for the terrarium) and the jumbo one - of the extra-slimy variety - is called Suzie.

Snails, by the way, love to eat apples.