The Sorrowful Story of Sid the Slug
The slow and simple one doing circles around Sally’s kitchen.
Meet Sid.
If you are wondering how I know he is called Sid, it’s because I named him.
I think Sid might be a little simple compared with his slug friends. The reason why I think that is because he seems to get confused and lost, and ends up left behind by his friends.
Once might have just been an accident. Twice is suspicious. Thrice is a serious matter.
Hi! I’m Sally and I live in Dartmoor National Park, in Devon, in the South-West of the UK.
Dartmoor is well known for getting dumped on by the rain clouds coming off of the sea. For this reason, it’s very green with vegetation and sometimes quite brown with mud. The ground is spongey and mossy and loved by all creatures that thrive in the moistest of places.
In other words, it is Slug Heaven!
Slugs love to party
Did you know how much slugs love have nightly get-togethers in illicit places?
No, neither did I until I came to live in the house that we currently call home.
Our kitchen looks out onto decking which is shaded from the sun for half the year. The shadiest corner almost never gets any sun ever, and therefore retains its dingy dampness pretty well.
It isn’t helped by the ferns growing out of the drains that created a crack in the corner of the wall, presumably before we moved in. It wasn’t obvious at all until we started to see mushrooms growing through it during the darkest months of the year.
Gross, I know.
But that’s not the worst part.
What is the worst part, I hear you ask?
Slugs. That’s what.
Enormous, fat slugs that somehow manage to squeeze their enormous, fat bodies through this tiny crack.
And not just one or two. Oh no…
Literally dozens come waltzing (a very slow, slug-like waltz) into my kitchen every night.
They are not there when we go to bed, and they (usually) are all gone when we get up in the morning. But, on the odd occasion, when we happen to come downstairs late at night, there they all are. Having their nightly slug party!
The poor, unsuspecting, visiting friend
The thing is, when this happens every single night, we just get used to it. For someone visiting from the concrete slug-desert of London, it can come as a bit of a shock to see. This happened when a friend visited over the summer.
Alex is a bit of a night owl, and would stay up until the early hours, occasionally grabbing a snack from the kitchen late at night. We also happened to be having a particularly damp spell of weather when she came to visit, and so the slug parties were more rampant than ever.
Unfortunately, I forgot to warn her about the nightly slug invasions, and she went into the kitchen one night to find that there was barely anywhere to put her feet as she tried to make her way to the snack cupboards. To say she was shocked, and a little grossed out, may have been an understatement.
Poor, sad Sid’s story
Oh yes, back to Sid.
Well, the thing is that, despite the nightly invasions, no matter what, the buggers all religiously scarper by morning. By the time it is light, there is not a slug to be seen.
However, this all changed a couple of mornings ago when I saw one lone slug still slugging across the kitchen floor when I got up. I was a bit concerned because he didn’t seem to be heading in the direction of his crack in the wall, but I just hoped that he would find it, so that I wouldn’t need to put my hands anywhere near slug-slime.
Thankfully, an hour later, as my son and I ate our breakfast, we saw him making his way in the right direction. That was the last we saw of him that day.
However, the next morning I got up to find a slug left all alone in the kitchen again. I assumed that he was the same slowcoach, the one that got left behind, and that he would find his way out, just as he had done the day before.
The morning passed and he still didn’t find his way out. I saw him going this way and that but, overall, just going round in circles.
Evening came and he was still there. I figured he may as well just hang out to meet his friends again for the nightly rave, so I left him to it.
But, this morning he was still there, and now, past lunch, he still seems to be wandering aimlessly, probably pining for his friends and wondering how he will ever find his way out of my kitchen again.
I hate to break up his one-slug party, but I might have to turf him out soon. I will brave the slug-slimed fingers.
Poor, sad Sid the Slug. I hope he finds his friends again.
Meanwhile, if you have any useful DIY advice on filling cracks in walls, please do share them with me. Thanks!
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