What the.....?

My son called out for me to come to the window to see this thing? What the....is it?

He says before I show you I should put an age restriction on the photo...and I have to admit its not pretty and took me a while to zoom in on the focus. Well, I suppose its not pretty to me, but then someone out there, maybe namely its mother might love it? There again?

It's like something out of alien vs. predator?

I'm not sure if its his house, shell, body or what? But he's carrying it with him and he's only using his first four legs!

I had seen what I thought was a leaf on the downstairs decking the other day and thought I'd sweep it off but never got round to it. Now I know it was this creature.....
So since then, this 'leaf' has climbed up from the ground floor to the first floor and along my windows (not so clean you may notice, but then we have had the wettest summer since records began - my excuse anyway).

Sorry I digress....and here's the close up.....

My son's laughing at me, even with typing this blog I've got a crinkly nose and a grimace on my face.
Not sure if I should knock it off or track where it's heading....I need to know what he's planning, hopefully not inside whilst I'm not looking!!!!

How Dare They....?

It was a beautiful morning with sun, blue sky and a perfect temperature....

just what we need before the start of autumn next week.

It certainly wasn't the sort of morning that you would want spoiling by an invasion!

I'm not talking of the little green men or the body-snatching kind - no just small, wrinkly, furry greedy insatiable hungry grubby kind!

I've been painstakingly taking tender care of my plants over the summer months, and none more so than my vine. Call me naive but I'm hoping that I might actually produce a grape from it one day soon. (It might well be ONE grape if I'm lucky) Hope springs eternal....

Anyway, but look what horrors I found....

It's necessary to just comment here that I can appreciate the beautiful colours, patterns etc of these creatures - BUT NOT ON MY VINE

I love to have butterflies hovering around the garden and so therefore a small thought passed through my head, that perhaps I should leave them to evolve, but then there are so many my plant would be stripped. They've got to go!
I know we share this planet but please not my vine.....

I tried to identify them by going online, but unfortunately the more I looked at numerous photo's the more sickly I began to feel. Breakfast began to talk back to me. Especially after watching so many of them inch there way along the leaves....gulp.
If anyone knows more about them, or what I can do to evict them, other than snipping off all the munched leaves, please let me know.