St Patrick’s Lizard

Contributed by Bridgeen Gillespie on 15/03/10

She’d never seen lizards like this, except maybe on foreign holidays. Now the little blighters were everywhere…
Only yesterday she’d found some in the linen closet, one in the bathroom bin, and a pair that appeared to be nesting under the settee. You may not find this weird but when you consider Katie lives in Ireland, not some sunny Mediterranean climes, you might begin to understand her surprise.

Judging by the places they’d been cropping up, these little lizards didn’t seem to need the sun. Which is just as well as Northern Ireland isn’t known for its clement weather. If their little lives depended on basking in sunshine they wouldn’t last five minutes here. “So does that make them warm blooded then?” She wondered. “Surely not, these are lizards, that’s got to be impossible. A new breed perhaps? Or a strain of left over dinosaurs?” Katie thought she might be getting ahead of herself.

By mid March the lizard population had hit epidemic proportions. Katie now found them in her kitchen cupboards, the cutlery drawer, and she even found one in her bed. She remembered about St Patrick and the old legend that he drove all the snakes out of Ireland. “He didn’t chase out the lizards though, clearly.” she thought. “Maybe he liked lizards? Maybe he’d kept one as a pet, and they’d been quietly breeding in the wilds of Donegal all this time”.

They were more exotic than mice, and certainly more colourful, but no less of a nuisance. Katie finally had enough when one had the audacity to turn up in her salad. “What odds?” She thought, “I wonder if they go well with ketchup? Hmmm. Now, to deep fry or grill?”