My nanny has all these funny ideas. Sometimes, I wonder if she isn't quite there. Like she thinks she can communicate with animals, through mental telepathy. Not just animals, like cats and dogs, but insects, too, and snakes. Anything really.

She had saved one of these thin little wasps from drowning. And she stood there for a while communicating with it, looking at its eyes. Eerie that was.

And the snake in the duck's pen; a large tiger snake only two feet away from her two bare feet. She said it didn't look aggressive. It had risen up some. She said it looked surprised, like, "Shall we be friends, you and I?"

But nanny is scared of snakes. She went gently backwards out of the narrow gate of the duck's pond, to get her gun. By the time she came back the snake was gone.

Thank heaven, as you wouldn't want to shoot a friendly snake .....