I am absolutely terrified, beyond the point of sense, of eight legged hairy creatures. I know it isn’t rational that small bug like creature with impossibly long unshaven legs could cause so much dread, but even the word ‘arachnid’ sparks fear into my soul. Why they are always up high where they can leap on me and not down low where I can have one of the children squish them with a thong?

Have you ever had that moment of dread of when you’re walking down your hallway and just catch a glimpse of something dark in the corner”¦”¦ Or head to the loo in the small hours of the morning and walk through a web? If it happens I won’t sleep I imagine those legs ever so briskly walking over my face or arms, and then start smacking (i.e. bashing) the offending object even though it usually ends up a part of the pillow or a mouth or my husband’s elbow. Explaining to people why I have a huge palm print on my face the next day is a tad embarrassing to say the least.

With the dry weather here, and the couple of recent storms, there have been a few huntsman spiders that have dared to come into the house. Huntsmen are the worst kind of spider. Yes I know their bite isn’t poisonous, but you would have to actually TOUCH one if it bit you. And if one touched me, I would need to change my strides!

On my recent staycation, my husband offered to take the kids to school. Lucky for me a mega-sized extra super hairy huntsman crawled on the outside of the driver’s side window whilst he was driving.

Let’s just say I’m glad it was him and not me or that car would be a smoking pile of metal on the side on the road somewhere!

His version of events is that as he had the children in the back, he calmly pulled over and ‘shooed’ it onto the windscreen before squishing it with the wiper blades. Easy. But on asking the children later, they happily told me that ‘Daddy squealed like a girl’.

Seems we make a good pair!