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Well, the snake was still draped across two patio chairs this morning and was looking even more settled than before. Having read that the Diamond Pythons are often tree-dwellers that lie in wait for prey to pass, I was a little concerned to see the snake with its tail wrapped securely around the chair arm and it’s head coiled up read to strike anything that scurried beneath the chair.

The patio chairs are favourite relaxation spots for our cats. I wonder if the snake could smell the cats and was ready to ambush them! Little did he know that the cats were safely in the house.

Anyway, I decided that it was time to “encourage” the snake to move on. Having donned thick gloves and being armed with two brooms, I started wrangling the snake! It wasn’t too pleased and struck the brooms a couple of times, but then it was being taunted!

After it climbed up the fence and looked as if it was going onto the roof, I was almost tempted to grab its tail and pull it back! It was a very strong snake - not easy to get into the box that I had ready. Eventually, it wrapped itself around one broom and I was able to carry it into the open where Debs moved the box and stood ready with the lid.

Once in the box, it was a different matter of getting the snake off the broom! Constrictors are not the easiest thing to get off a broom handle, but it eventually unwrapped itself and hey presto, one snake in a box! Debs fearlessly moved in (despite being six months pregnant) and closed the lid on the box to secure the monster.

I was a bit unsure of the length when posting the images yesterday and I thought that it was a little under two metres. When it uncurled along the fence, it was obviously a lot bigger than it looked on the chair. I’d say it was definitely over 2m - probably about 220cm.

We were too excited during the wrangling to record the action, but we did record the release. We took it to the end of the street where the National Park track starts and released it a short way up the track. Here’s the video:

I fitted a new cat flap to our laundry door last night and we have propped it open to allow the cats to go in and out at will as they get used to their new door. I had to close and lock it in a bit of a hurry today as I walked past the patio door on the upstairs decking and saw a large snake basking on one of the patio chairs. Harriett was sitting on the rocks at the far end of the patio unaware that she was potential lunch for our visitor!

As soon as I secured the house, I grabbed the camera and took a few photos. After returning from work, the snake was still sitting on the chair. Deborah watched from the safety of the rumpus room sofa whilst Welly barked at it! It is clearly in no hurry to move and as I write this at almost 10pm, it is still there!

The snake is a Diamond Python. It’s about 2m long which is typical of this species although they can grow to 3m. They are not venomous, but have a nasty bite (apparently). We’re a bit worried about letting the cats out as they will eat rodents , small birds and even possums so I reckon they could have a go at a cat if they were hungry.

Hopefully it will have gone by the time we get up tomorrow so that we can let the cats enjoy their new door.

I have held my Cherished Transfer number plate on a Retention Certificate since I sold my Saab 9-3 Convertible in March 2006.

It is now clear that Deborah and I will not be returning to the UK at any time soon and therefore, it is pretty pointless keeping this number plate.

It was great fun to own “Big PMC” since I put it on my first car at the age of 21. I have even considered purchasing the same “rego” in Australia!

The plate is for sale through National Numbers for about £1,500. If you want to make me an offer, then please do so via the Contact page.

Update: Sold!  Sorry you missed out.

Having recently set up Asterisk, I was a little unhappy about the default installation of a MySQL server on the trixbox server and creating the databases there.

I have a separate MySQL server (with phpMyAdmin) and I didn’t want to have to think about backing up and maintaining another one, so I did a bit of Googling to find out how to migrate FreePBX or trixbox databases to another server.

The results were a little disappointing, with only vague references about how to go about doing it, and they seem to discourage it. Boring!

Here is what I did:
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