Of Green Slugs...

... and cigarette butts.

So, after the long and painful process of revision and exams along with all the procrastination that goes along with it, I threw myself into a frenzy of drinking and catching up on all those things that we've missed so much, including shopping, walking and staying up until the wee hours of the morning chatting absolute bollocks.

Every afternoon would start off with a 'quiet hair-of-the-dog' to help lift us out of the fug from the night before. By the time the pubs were closing we'd consumed about 2 1/2 dogs each and then it'd be back to the Glorious Kitchen to continue drinking and chatting about nothing at all.

Sometime last week when the sun was still out, we decided to go out on the terrace and to try dining al fresco for the evening. A French stick was bought, along with olives, hoummous and salad, as well as wine wine wine wine wine. Before we sat down though, we thought we'd give the terrace a bit of a clean, as there was debris left over from the last party we had which dated back to last September.

Sometimes in life things should be left untouched or unsaid. Many a time have I done something then realised how absobloodylutely wrong it was in context or situation. Other times, things should be done swiftly, and cleaning and tidying up is definitely one of those things.

Moving the box that had empty bottles and cans proved to be more difficult that imaginable. The cardboard had reacted with the rain and the weather and had degraded into some sort of paste, the kind you get when you dip babies rusks in milk. Dragging the foulness away revealed a habitat of yet-to-be identified fauna that included not-so-silverfish, earwigs and slugs. But these weren't just any old slugs, these slugs were green.

Now forgive me if I am naive but I always assumed that slugs were brown or black, or at a push perhaps even a muddy green. But these were Bright Luminescent Green, like those apple sour laces you get as penny sweets. Small flatmate screamed and jumped onto a chair, while the hairs stood on the back of my neck and I had this awful image of them leaping at me to suck my brains out like in that film Slither.

So after a lot of shuddering, I gingerly poked them (there were 3) and they curled up and then I transferred them onto a broken bit of styrofoam plate. Then I chucked them over the side of the terrace onto the unused pavement below. Took a while, but then I heard a satisfying 'splat' which made me hope that that was the end of those slimy things...

Then we set about sweeping up the cigarette butts that were littered all over the place. At last count there were only about 3, but it seemed that in our absence and lack of attention, the 3 last remaining butts had decided to repopulate the terrace and so there must have been about 300. My guess is that those weird slugs were responsible...

The other thing is, where did those slugs come from? I could understand if we had a garden, but we have a concrete terrace, with no plants, and on the 3rd floor. Surely slugs would have suffered from altitude sickness halfway up the pebbledashing, not to mention sore er... foot? Well, whatever it is they have.

It still remains a mystery and I'd be grateful if someone could shed some light on where slugs originate from.

Answers on a postcard...

Or in comments.