Under Attack!

It’s that time of year I suppose. It’s getting colder and damper outside, so they look for somewhere warmer and dryer. Well, you would I suppose, why should spiders be any different?
I’m not afraid of spiders, I don’t like them, but they don’t cause me any undue stress or discomfort. Unfortunately for me, Cathy is very afraid. And when I say afraid, I don’t mean a girlie squeal and ‘ohh, horrible, there’s a spider’. I mean shakes, cold sweats, pale face and I swear once or twice she has been close to passing out she’s so frightened.

Why? I’m no psychologist, but her mum does the same so she was obviously very frightened as a child to see her mum so upset and these deep, subconscious memories come flooding back and she is unable to control them. Now this is where I upset Cathy. She is able to control them, I tell her, but chooses not too. There is no reason for her to be afraid of spiders. Harmless, inoffensive creatures that reduce the fly population (now you should be afraid of flies – they spread horrible diseases). Long story, but I believe they both actually want to be frightened of them. Kind of an attention thing in a weird way, when I see one (and I try and shoo it away before Cathy see’s it), she always has to look and see it – even though she knows the feelings this will bring on.

Anyway, I digress. There have been an increasing number of them invading our house recently, quite a size some of them by UK standards, and not shy in running towards the middle of the room where they can be clearly seen.

But I have to tell you about one in particular. It was so big I actually measured it. I joke you not.
Now I’ve travelled the world in my time and have seen Tarantula’s in the Arizona dessert, huge things in Nepal I can’t remember the name of, and things in Hong Kong that eat rats. So I’ve seen, in real life, proper spiders, big things that could wear your shoes.
This one in my living room was a house spider that was 15cm from curled leg to leg. I approximate this size, as spiders are not good at sitting still whilst you get the tape measure out. They are not used to having their inside leg measured, I suppose. It was so big I looked up some spider information on the internet. Apparently it is very rare for a house spider to grow larger than 15/16cm so this was at the larger end of the house spider scale. I’m glad Cathy was out or there could have been an ambulance required. I was tempted to keep it in a pint pot to show people lest they think it was a fisherman’s tale, but I’d be evicted immediately if she saw it.
Sitting with laptop on knee (glad I didn’t have a hand at the time), I saw it crawl up the curtains and sit, maybe napping, across the other side of the room. Even I thought, sh*t, what the hell is that – maybe it’s one having a piggy back ride from the other – but no, I walked up and had a look for a few minutes. Thick, hairy legs, chunky body and two hands required to pick it up in a piece of kitchen towel and deposit it outside.

Maybe I should have let it bite me (all spiders bite, apparently) and seen if I could climb walls and swoosh from building to building saving pretty maidens in distress.
Mia could have had it as a pet and taken it for walks (or runs) on a leash.
Cathy actually thinks Mia is the reason there are so many at the moment. She runs around on our wooden flooring at some pace, and like worms will surface when you tap the ground, she is disturbing the spiders and they are seeking refuge away from her thudding footsteps.

Either way, it keeps Cathy on her toes, peering cautiously into rooms before entering, and then yesterday, she had to stay in the living room for 2 hours as there was one on the doorframe and she couldn’t walk past it and out of the room in case it got her. Luckily, I had decided to nip home for lunch and could save the day.

The things we do for our women, huh?