The large container in the foreground had just arrived. Actually, when I got to Brixton there we NO snails ... I asked the seller (whom I'd brought from last month) if there were any available. He told me to give him 5 minutes - and 5 minutes later this HUGE crate was plonked down, and the snails were decanted into the two cardboard boxes you see in the background. No idea how long it would have taken them to arrive here, but they were very tightly packed, so don't think they'd have been able to move much, if at all :-( I felt very guilty rummaging around to find 'my' snails. As this was a fairly 'fresh' shipment there didn't seem to be too many dead or decayed animals, so whilst yukky it could have been a lot worse.

Whilst it's very, very sad to see them kept like this, I'm not sure we can really judge - after all, look at the way many intensively farmed animals are treated here; and what about live shellfish, crabs etc. Are they really any different?

If you want to go to the market my (rather embarrassing!) 2002 instructions can be found here: http://www.pbase.com/annierat1/market