It was pure hiss and miss as Steve blundered into a snake

I walked into a snake the other day. No, genuinely. I was strolling through my local park at a family event and was bending down to say to my young son, 'for the 54th time, no you can't have a go on the hook-a-duck because it costs £4.50 and all you win is some cheap plastic tat made in a sweatshop in China' when I bumped into something. I looked up and came face to face with a bright yellow snake.

- Steve Canavan

After screaming in the high pitched manner of a schoolgirl who's just learned she's been selected for the school hockey team and leaping around 15 foot in the air, I saw in front of me not just one snake but dozens of them, held by a group of nutters-sorry, well-respected members of a wildlife trust-who were stood around smiling and making relaxed idle chatter as if fondling snakes in public was the most normal thing in the world to do.

'Hi, my name's Nathan,' said a 12-year-old boy, holding the yellow snake I'd collided with, a snake that appeared to be staring intently at me and sticking his little forked tongue in the air as if to say, 'hmm, wonder what he tastes like?'

'Don't be scared, said Nathan (as a 49-year-old man I wasn't entirely comfortable with a 12-year-old telling me not to be frightened but I let it go), 'he's called Fang and he's harmless'.

By this point, I'd taken two large steps backward and my breathing was just about returning to normal.

"Thanks Nathan," I said, "I'm not scared (that was a lie), just a tad concerned to find a bunch of snakes in my local park."

Nathan smiled at me. He looked very much like the type of lad who'd own a snake, as in slightly odd-looking and as though he hadn't got many close friends.

Mind you, I suppose you're going to be a bit different if you're mum tells you five times a day to go to the freezer to fetch a dead rat for Fang.