Can snakes turn into fish?

On Sunday, from the safe distance of our first floor terrace, we spotted a sizeable snake in our garden. Yesterday morning, my husband had another sighting, two of them this time, getting amorous near the back gate. He threw a lump of rock at them (our builders had the foresight to leave us with plenty of ammunition) and they disappeared into the undergrowth. Snakes, the harmless grass variety or otherwise, are as welcome in my garden as plastic garden chairs (see previous post). I grew up in a London suburb; I'm a townie. For me snakes were always something you watched David Attenborough cope with, secured within the confines of the TV set in the corner of our living-room.

Our Australian friends, who spend half their year in SW France and the other half in Oz, regard my wildlife squeamishness with lofty amusement. An American friend who lives in Southern California sent me an email the other day. She mentioned that a notice had gone up in her condo block warning that rattlesnakes had been sighted in the area. So there are millions of people out there for whom a couple of lovelorn grass snakes are really no big deal. I know all this, but it doesn't help. On Sunday night I lay awake in the small hours and fretted about the unspeakable horrors that might lurk in my Mediterranean garden. I'd pictured a rose arbour, meandering paths, swathes of fragrant lavender. I'd even spent an enjoyable hour on Sunday afternoon sketching a planting plan. Naive as a latter day Eve in her Garden of Eden, I hadn't reckoned on snakes.

Thankfully God has a habit of taking even my most ridiculous fears seriously. On Monday morning my devotional reading included Luke 11:11. I laughed out loud when I read it. 'Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?'

I thought about all the other worries and fears I lie awake fretting about, and it occurred to me that the Luke verse had a wider application than grass snakes. God my loving father, gives me fish, not snakes. One day, my garden will be as beautiful as I envisage it in my sketch pad. The snakes will turn out to be fish after all. Hmmm...where's that planting plan? An ornamental pond - now there's a thought.

Have you had any experience in your life of 'snakes' turning out to be 'fish'? How do you deal with the fears that keep you awake in the small hours?

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