My heart sank a bit when I saw that I was blogging a Serpent: he’s dreadfully hard, isn’t he? Well no, not actually: there were some easy ones so that the start was OK; then I got rather stuck and was slow to complete. But the clues (apart from 28ac possibly: no doubt I shall be corrected — yes I was, by baerchen, many thanks, I thought that would happen) were sound and good. Nice crossword.
Definitions underlined, in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.