The Spiders

My last post was so full of chicken I never got round to mentioning The Spiders.

It is Spider Season here. The carpet has been crawling with the thin long-legged type – so ephemeral their legs snap if you glare at them. The front door has a huge web in front of it, occupied by a golden Madam who throws her washing lines in every direction and has a hissy fit if one of her threads so much as trembles. (Which they do, frequently: my breath turns somewhat menacing when I realize I cannot approach my front door without the risk of destroying the Madam’s home.) Tiny white balls of fluff, spider cases, have appeared on the floor beneath my spider plant, rolling stroppily around, resisting attempts at capture.

I have been woken at night by strange caresses, long fingers delicately tracing my cheek or neck.

I had entered Spider Season with equanimity, until the night-time caresses turned to day time horrors. Stumbling out of bed, I sleepily put on my jeans. As my foot emerged from the bottom of the leg (if that makes sense – the leg of the jeans, that is) something large and grey dropped from my toe. A spider. At least 3 inches across, stretched out. It was certainly at full stretch as it galloped towards the bed. I lunged, but missed as it reached safe haven.

Its cousin – even larger – was in the bath, glowering.

“Look, it’s not my fault I live in this house too,” I told it. But reasoning with Spiders is a fruitless task. I gave up, because I know something the Spiders don’t.

Cold weather is coming. Then they’ll be sorry they ever lived here. They’ll be moving out then – unless I get them first.