Brian48 - did you ever hear from John Annan? I am reminded of him today as I recall a discussion about snakes (he being familiar with the beasties from Rhodesia) and his advice generally was that snakes were more scared of humans than we of them, and the usually quickly made themselves scarce if threatened. Reason I recall that was because heard odd noise in the ceiling above the airing cupboard, I banged on the underside and shortly afterwards Mrs W saw a coulevrier coming down the wall and out under the back gate. I give the ceiling a tap every now and again to encourage it to go and frighten the @rseoff someone else. I hate snakes, even non-poisonous ones.