Claire took a deserved break from her household and nursing duties, to spend an hour at a friend’s house. I suspected she had returned when I heard the front door open. I knew she had returned when I heard her let out a terrifying scream. Considering that I hadn’t attempted to cook cheese on toast in her absence, and thus destroying the kitchen, Claire’s blood-curdling shriek must have meant one thing… a spider.

My assessment of the developing perilous situation, by the front door, was correct. Claire had eye-spied a spider. The next question I posed would be the most critical. Any arachnophobe will know exactly what this question is and how it is of paramount importance…

“how big is it?”

Based upon Claire’s scream, moments earlier, I knew that I wouldn’t like her response… “BIG!”

Now, when somebody responds with the word “BIG”, it isn’t always a bad thing – it all depends upon the question posed. For example, “What is your favourite Tom Hanks movie?” or “Which gangster rapper is believed to be ‘Notorious’?”. To answer “BIG” to either of those questions could, in no way, be considered a negative. Unless you’re a die hard fan of Forrest Gump.

To answer “BIG” to any question regarding a spider is bad. You could even say it is a big, big worry for me!

I started to scream. This lead Claire to start screaming again. Roman looked terrified. I don’t think he is frightened of spiders (at least he wasn’t before yesterday). Judging by his owners’ terror, Roman must have thought a man and rabbit-eating monster had broken into the house.

Claire ran to the kitchen to get something, which could be used to catch the spider. She returned with one of the largest utensils possible (although anything less would have been too small), a Sports Direct Mug. Whatever poor sod sent us this mug in the post may have only been on a zero-hour contract and had not gone to the toilet for days, but by supplying us with a grossly oversized teacup, had immensely helped Claire, Roman and I in our moment of plight.

Claire is normally very brave and quick at catching spiders. Since moving in with me, 5 years ago, she has been forced to deal with the beasties. However, in this instance the creature from the black lagoon was both too large and too fast, even for Claire, with all her expertise.

The only way in which the mug was going to be of any use, was if Claire either threw it at the spider, or made me an Irish coffee in it, to calm my nerves.

Claire had to resort to something we are not proud of (apart from Roman, who was all for the idea)… she had to kill it with bug spray. We both hate killing things, even spiders, but sometimes you have no choice. Before all the vegans start posting hate on my blog, let me ask you “would you kill a sewer rat if it was living in your kitchen?” Most people would. And isn’t “all life equal”? Case closed.

After getting sprayed, the spider ran to hide under my stairlift. Once sedated, Claire caught it in the massive mug (thanks, Mike Ashley) and released it outside.

Nightmare over. Or so we thought…

In all the excitement, Roman had kicked poop from his litter tray everywhere. If Claire thought that dirty protest was bad, she was yet to see my underwear!

The real Beast From The East

They say that there are some disturbing things on the internet – men messing with dogs, extreme violence, Katie Hopkins… the list goes on. So far, I have managed to avoid these horrors from the Dark Web – until today, when I witnessed a truly horrifying video on Twitter.

After viewing the upsetting material, I did what any sensible adult would do. I uploaded it to YouTube, so it would gain an even larger audience.

For added effect, I added the Jaws theme to the video, which I have embedded below…

So, because of yesterday’s scary spider discovery, I took drastic action. Before bed, I sprayed bug killer in the area that the dead body and legs were found. This was more of a preventative method, than anything else – a deterrent for any other spider, thinking of moving in.

I know some of you will still find this hypocritical, after my recent veggie revelation, but I was spraying a can of Raid – it wasn’t like I had shot Cecil the Lion’s mother.

Upon coming downstairs this morning, I saw this in exactly the same place as the previous day’s carcass…

After much shouting, screaming, and me trying to escape upstairs, leaving Claire to face the horror alone; my brave wife got out her trusty Dyson again, and sucked up the dead arachnid. That Dyson is fast becoming as useful as those guns used to capture ghosts on Ghostbusters.

Just look how it contained the beast (and tore its legs off).

The whole ordeal left Claire and I shaken. We then discovered that Roman was equally as scared – my girly shrieks must have startled him. Either that, or he suffers from arachnophobia too!

I made a very disturbing discovery this morning… In our porch, just outside the front room, I saw a pair of legs on the floor. Before you all worry, Oscar Pistorius hasn’t escaped to Bath from his South African jail. These limbs belonged to a creature – a creature that I can only guess is a spider!

Claire is very house-proud, so as soon as I informed her of the gruesome discovery, she grabbed her beloved Dyson and sucked up the legs. Along with the legs, Claire also managed to find the dead body of a big, hairy spider. Despite being very much deceased, it went up the vacuum cleaner.

I am sure that you are all wondering what the problem is. Yes, we found a spider, but it was dead and is now surrounded by fluff, Rice Krispies and anything else that went up the Dyson’s tube. What’s more, it can’t even escape from the dusty grave, as it is minus two legs, oh and it’s dead!

The problem, my friends, is this – what the hell maimed and killed the huge spider? Whatever it was, is still alive and at large…

Pray for me.

I am blogging again at this hideously late time, not because I am hoping to spot The BFG delivering dreams to my neighbours, but because we have had the first (and hopefully last) spider encounter of 2018.
I was happily dozing and about to fully fall asleep, when Claire leapt out of bed – and I mean LEAPT.

Instinctively, I knew the cause of this reaction. A spider. I was right. Before I continue this horror story, I will say that I would be in the wrong to suggest I have some supernatural, psychic power, to enable me to guess when my wife has spotted an arachnid. The truth is, that whenever Claire shouts or lets out a shriek from another room, I always incorrectly assume that she has been attacked by a spider, when in fact the reality is that she has dropped a cup or stubbed her toe on the kitchen table. Therefore, tonight, when Claire took flight and left the marital bed, I correctly guessed it was a spider, when on another evening, she could have smelt an unpleasant odour and thought that I had broken wind.

Back to the spider… the way Claire described the beast, you would have thought it was as big as a dining plate. “Why don’t we ever keep a dustbin in the bedroon?” I thought, thinking that such an object would be the ideal size to catch something with such a large leg diameter. Never mind a dustbin, we didn’t even have a sodding pint glass in the bedroom! Again, I wished to myself – this time that either Claire or myself were alcoholics, who would have a bedside pint glass. No such luck. Never mind being an ‘alcy’, even my cider drinking days are a thing of the past. The only thing that Claire could find, in order to trap the invader to our bedroom, was a plastic disposable cup. The type you get served orange squash in at a church fête. Marvellous.

There was bad news. By the time Claire had FOUND the cup, she had LOST the spider. If you hate spiders, like I do, a spider missing in the bedroom is the thing of nightmares. Seriously – I’d rather dream of being buried alive by Fred West or eaten by a baboon. Luckily, my hero wife pulled apart our TV cabinet, accidentally unplugging the Sky box in the process, and found the creature responsible for causing so much peril.
Once caught in the barley water cup, Claire took the spider to the bathroom for disposal – out of the window, not down the toilet, before any of you call the RSPCA.

Needless to say, I didn’t ask to see the spider. I wanted it out of the house, quicker than Donald Trump would deport a gay, disabled, unemployed immigrant, without a visa.
I was on the verge of sleep, before the ordeal. Now, to quote Claire, “Well, if I was sleepy before, I f***ing ain’t now!”

Anyway, sleepy or not, I am off to try and rest. I just hope that “thing” didn’t have any friends. As they say on Crimewatch, “Don’t have nightmares”.