Spiders

Spiders appear to be everywhere! I can feel them crawling on me. A leaf touching my skin, the bottom of trousers flapping against my ankles, my hair moving against my neck, and I am sure that it is one of 'them'.

The current problem with spiders began when I was here six weeks ago. First I thought that all the egg shells under the vents were spider eggs so I looked everywhere for the baby spiders. They were in fact wasp egg shells as there were old nests in the vents. Walter got bitten by a small spider. Aaron and Kylie found an enormous spider in their tent, plus quite a few cicadas and a giant beetle. Cicadas and beetles don't really count I know. Kylie thought she had been bitten on the leg three or four times by spiders. Finally Aaron took a very large black spider back to Holland in his suitcase, not on purpose I might add.

Once back in the UK I was sure we had spiders running around everywhere. Although I constantly looked for them I could not find any but I was sure they were lurking somewhere there. Then one morning as I was lying reading the news on my BlackBerry I turned my head to see a large spider crawling over my shoulder. At last my fears were realised. I flung myself out of bed, cup of tea going everywhere, to find it was the tiniest little spider which must have been magnified by my glasses.

I know I have an irrational fear of spiders, developed I am sure, from my sister’s fear of spiders.

Over the years I have come face to face with some beauties too. Huntsman spiders in Australia, harmless but enormous. They sit on tents, in corners of rooms and once when we were camping you had a choice of either using the long drop toilet with spiders or the long drop toilet with flies. Some choice. Then there were the Singapore equivalent of the Huntsman spiders. They came inside when it rained, which was on most days and were here one minute and gone the next – but where to was the question. Ugh!

I have screamed when I have encountered spiders, I have become hysterical, I have ripped off my T shirt in front of guests (I thought there was a spider on my back), I have fallen off my bike and badly grazed my knees because where was a big black spider hanging from the seat, I have put my hand under the pillow and pulled out a spider (also big and black), I even knocked a red back spider off my mother’s leg, which was very brave, but then I did not want her to get bitten.

I always check under the toilet seat in outdoor toilets in Australia. I believe that most redback spider bites are on people’s backsides because they sit on them.

And just to prove that I am sure the spiders are lurking around waiting to jump out at me, Donna was bitten by a spider as she cleaned the caravan. As I write this I keep checking around me. Paranoia!