“My wife and her sister own an interesting cottage outside an unlikely location called Gouritzmond.  This is situated on what I describe as the Cape South Coast in South Africa although officially it is part of the Western Cape.  It’s miles from anywhere and most people only speak a strange language known as Afrikaans which is roughly the local equivalent of Welsh.

The property (Seeland) is situated about 5 kilometres outside the village in what is called a conservation area.  This comes with some disadvantage in that the garden and immediately surrounding area are infested by moles.  Irrespective of any official rules about cruelty to animals, we are determined to rid ourselves of these unruly beasts which seem determined to dig up the property and may soon attend to the house itself.  It’s bad enough when we are occasionally invaded by bats, let alone the puff adder which I nearly trod on some years ago.  There are definitely more snakes than ladders.

Having done my best to put you off, let me tell you that the location is in many ways idyllic.  The property has nearly a kilometre of seafront and incorporates about 27 hectares of mainly fynbos which I suppose can be paralleled with heather.  The seafront is essentially rocky but includes its own secret swimming pool which regularly incorporates one or more octopi.  Generally these are not at all troublesome but we have known visitors clearly to be very appealing to these creatures.  The visitors don’t seem to like the attention.

The rocks are home to some lovely birds called oyster catchers and the trees, of which there are not many, sometimes attract Cape eagle owls which one can hear at night and if lucky enough actually see them.  As for the snakes, my problem is that they are not labelled.  The grass snakes are fine.  I have yet to see a cobra although they are there somewhere.  The puff adder is a most annoying snake because it doesn’t move, being a lazy creature, and so it is wise to avoid it.  Then there is the boemslang.  This is back fanged and so, as you may expect, if it is really annoyed and chooses to bite you then you can assume you will shortly be dead.  On that happy note let me leave you to contemplate the glories of no man’s land.

But I would prefer to end on a high note so let me assure you that snakes are not plentiful and are rarely seen while the view from the ‘dress circle’ which overlooks the sea from the back porch is quite magical.”