Somewhere on teh intarwebs "Rusty Hinge 2" typed:
The message
from "~misfit~" contains these words:

When *I* was an anklebiter I had a pet adder...

A pet *adder*? Wow! When I was a nipper I had a pet grass snake.....

I remember Dad hammering in tent pegs in South Wales when we were on
holiday
and scammpering off on his hands and kness hammering at the ground.
We all laughed until he held up a dead adder. They're venomous no?

Venomous?

More people die of wasp stings in a year than have died of adder bites
during the whole of last century. (8, IIRC)

Only *VERY* young children or people with a weak heart or an allergy
are at risk.

And now, adders are protected.

When I put my hand in the adder's vivarium it used to come and wind
itself among my fingers. It never tried to bite me. At first, and
until it had got used to the idea that I was the bringer of food and
warm hands, it used to 'strike' at my gloved hand, but with a closed
mouth.

I think it only took a week before it gave that up. While I sometimes
took grass snakes to school, I never took the adder...

Interesting, thanks Rusty. When I was young I was just told to watch out for
adders as they were venomous and could kill. When I was 11 we moved to New
Zealand and there are no snakes here so I guess I didn't spend enough time
in England to find out more for myself.

I really like snakes, I think I was the only member of my family to be
disappointed that there were no snakes in NZ. Completely different for my
father, he's phobic about them. If he wasn't we'd probably have migrated to
Australia instead of NZ. I can live without snakes, I'm pleased to be in NZ
rather than Aus (even though the rest of the familt have all ended up
there).

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

DISCLAIMER: If you find a posting or message from me
offensive, inappropriate, or disruptive, please ignore it.
If you don't know how to ignore a posting, complain to
me and I will be only too happy to demonstrate... ;-)