Cedric the snail

Most nights at bedtime, the wee creatures get a choice between a story book or a made up story. At least they do if Richard is on "bedtime duty", I am not very accomplished at making up stories. Here is last night's story, a bit different maybe:

Cedric the snail was a stamp collector. He had beautiful stamps from all over the world. Colourful stamps from the Caribbean, snowy stamps from Scandinavia, even a triangular stamp from Trinidad. In fact, he had stamps from every country in the world – except for France. Cedric really wanted a stamp from France.

He talked to his friend Eric the slug. “What is France famous for?” asked Cedric. “Food, of course” said Eric. “French people eat wonderful salads”.

“Mmmm” said Eric. They both liked salad.

Then Cedric had an idea. He wrote a letter to the President of France. He wrote “I am very interested in French food. Please can you send me your favourite recipe?” He posted the letter and he waited for a reply.

8 days later, Cedric got a letter. From France. With a lovely blue French stamp. He cut off the stamp and showed it to Eric. “It’s very nice” said Eric. “What about the salad recipe”. So, they opened the envelope and read:

“Recipe for snails in garlic sauce”

Cedric felt horribly sick. Eric said he liked garlic (but he secretly thought that snails might spoil the taste). Cedric was disgusted. He felt angry. So angry that he got on a train to Paris and went straight to the Presidential Palace. He went to the back and peeked through the window into the kitchen. There he saw a French chef busy chopping garlic onto a snail. Now Cedric was really cross. He rushed into the kitchen and said to the snail “Come with me. I will save you.”

“Excusez moi?” said the French snail.

There was no time to waste. Cedric pushed the French snail onto the floor and jumped down after her. “ Je m’appelle Marie Pierre” said the French snail. “Allons-y” shouted Cedric and they hurried out of the kitchen as fast as their feet would carry them. Outside, Marie-Pierre said “Oh, my hero. You have saved my life. Will you marry me?”

“Yes” said Cedric, but only if we can leave this uncivilized place immediately.

So Cedric and Marie-Pierre went back to Scotland, and sent wedding invitations to their friends all around the world. They got many replies, all with beautiful stamps.

I don't know where Richard gets the ideas from usually but this time he might have been hungry...as we do indeed have a pack of beautiful frozen snails in our freezer that we bought in the large Chinese supermarket, not sure why really but there you go.

I should say we did have them in the freezer, I have cooked them tonight, we all watched with fascination and a little bit in awe when Richard hooked the snails out with the implement that is usually is used to get crab meet out of crabs legs (yes indeed, we do own such a thing!). I wasn't quite hungry enough to try one myself....