Blimey - made the cat fall off the sofa!
I had a largish grass snake live under a sheet of corrugated metal on my allotment last summer for a couple of months. Not quite as exciting as the big fella but a nice little snake all the same. He was quite happy being handled I guess for the body heat. (This year it's a toad living in the same spot. We've called him 'Nigel' cos he's a dead ringer for that crap tory politician from years ago called Nigel Lawson- the resemblance is uncanny).