Thursday 29 September 2016

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

"If you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive."

This is a saying my Dad used to say to me when I was little, and even though I'm quite scared of spiders, I still go out of my way not to hurt them.

This usually involves me having to either wait until husband gets home from work so he can capture them safely and release them to freedom, or me donning my Marigolds - I know, it's daft isn't it, but I can cope with most things if I've got my trusty rubber gloves on! - getting some cardboard, a glass, or whatever else I can find and then moving as swiftly as I can to get them outside.

At which point my dog will block my way, look at me - much the same as Moose does in the Clearscore advert - and I can almost hear him say 'What doin'? Where goin'?'.

I only mention this because there's been a raft of stories involving spiders in the press, and my house also seems to have become a haven for the largest spiders in the world who look like they're wearing boots.  Seriously, they're enormous - about the size of my hand.  Well my daughter's hand, ok possibly the same size as the dog's paw, but you get the idea - they're big.

We've read about the family from Leicester who bought some bananas and then had to have their house fumigated after a cocoon burst forth and hundreds of what's thought to be baby Brazilian wandering spiders emerged like something in a horror film.

To make matters even worse, these spiders apparently have a bite that results in a very unfortunate medical condition - I'll leave it there, this is a family paper - and possibly death if not treated in time.

Then I read about an Australian man using a Portaloo and being bitten in the same delicate place twice, a few months apart.  Now that's what you call unlucky - not sure he'd agree with the 'live and thrive' advice from my Dad! 





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