Arachna ...... bloody hell its a spider!

A bit of background first, I spend my whole life on the lookout for spiders. They terrify me. They move too quickly. They bite! I think it's a genetic thing - my mother is terrified of them and so is my brother (but he still used to scare me as as kid - see #76 & #77!) I can't even watch the film Arachnaphobia, just the clips I saw were enough! One of the kids who was in last years' class has a tarantula and he brought the skin in after it shed ....... oh god!! That was horrendous! [Am I babbling? Have I spelt babbling correctly?]

Over the years, I've visited Southern Africa through college and work a number of times and there I watch out for them constantly! As you travel around the country, the spider's webs are so big you can see them in the trees as you drive past. The first time I went there an ex taught me how to use a zippo and hair-spray (pump action of course .... you have to consider the ozone layer) to kill them!! In the Kalahari desert they have huge (dinner plate sized) white spiders - I'd have dropped dead if I had seen one of them!!

This morning it was spiders, spiders everywhere - BIG spiders, ok it was only photos (ms mac's meanderings and kiwi fruit - put me off Oz/NZ for life!) but I dont even like pictures/film of spiders! And then I went into the bathroom and there it was!

Me - (loudly) Simon, there's a spider! In the bathroom!

Simon - no it's just cotton!

Me - (creeping closer, well now that I think it was more of a leaning of my body) no, it's a spider. A big spider!

So he comes upstairs and enters the bathroom.

Simon - god, you're right. That's big! I have no idea where that came from!

Me - me neither, can you get rid of it?

So he grabs some loo roll, picks it up and flushes it. I can hear ms.mac's disgust from here - but he didn't kill it. It was already dead - it's just I can't even touch dead spiders! Yeh I know, I'm a chicken!!