No one mentioned snakes when out cycling! There we were cycling in the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside and I spotted a coiled up snake at the side of the road as we rode past. I thought it was dead. I have never seen a live, wild snake in the UK before, so it was a bit of a surprise!

We turned our bikes around and approached it cautiously, caused a mini traffic jam in the road (it was a narrow lane) and then the snake moved. It had decided to make a run (slither) for it. Up its little head popped and it started to make its way across the rood – cars or no cars. We were looking for a stick to help it on its way and stop the snake from becoming roadkill!

At this point a man stopped his car complete with gun dog in the back of his car (a beautiful looking German Short-haired Pointer, I think) and asked what was up. So we showed him. He said “no point in killing something you are not going to eat” and promptly found a blanket from his car, calmly picked up said snake with the blanket, took it to the other side of the road into the grass.

The snake played dead. After a couple of minutes it started to move and headed away from the road and into the fields beyond. You can’t say this cycling training business is boring!

You can just see its head on the left

Off to safety!

We managed 23 miles with hills that day and the pace was okay considering I wasn’t feeling 100% – sore throat and cold. And we’d like to have done some more but after all we had the Monza F1 GP to watch and I had plans later on with my Mummy.

Surely saving a snake is worth a little donation to the wonderful Prince’s Trust who do amazing things to inspire young people? 🙂

Please donate here if you can: bitly.com/1qK2Bg6