Snakes and other gifts

Wrapped in the pink of proteas and yellow daisy fields blurring in the wind this afternoon, lost in the golden universe of the mountain, it had been a long time since I thought of snakes. A man running ahead of me on the path at Kloof Corner suddenly came back to tell me he had just seen a puffadder and he was worried about Roxy sniffing out the snake.

So I picked her up and he went to show me where the snake had just crossed the path and had curled up under a rock. That's where he still was; I would never have noticed him. I was happy to have had a (safe) snake encounter and wondered again how often I pass snakes that I never notice. In all the many years of walking on the mountain, it's only the third time I saw a snake, and never felt threatened. Yet my reptile brain still whispers: ssssnake.....

After the snake, this crisp, clear winter's afternoon on the mountain still had a few other gifts. The late afternoon light reflecting in the water pouring over rocks. The sun highlighting one furry petal of a protea. And after the sun sank over the ocean, the whole sky lit up in the after-glow.

Water seeps out of the mountain.