Wildlife

One thing about living in the country is that we live in close proximity to all sorts of wild critters. We have tawny owls nesting in the field behind our house - and who can blame them with all those bunnies that graze on the field every afternoon and evening (I swear, it's like Watership Down) - we have bats snapping up the insects that hover outside our living room window, attracted by the light, and I see water voles, stoats and hedgehogs in the country lanes at night. And then there are the spiders. I'm trying to remain calm about the spiders, as I have a husband who jumps on the first sign of a phobia (ask Simone - he's threatening to post her his dismembered toenail). In an attempt to be friends with the spiders, I have started naming them. All the really big ones are called Simon, the spindley ones are called Stephen Greenblatt and we also have the occasional Arthur and Brian. You can't be scared of something called Arthur, right?

Well, let me tell you something. You fucking well can when it's in your fucking bed at night! Oh yes, last night, just as I was dozing off, my whole body wrapped in duvet to protect me from the freezing summer night-time temperatures, I feel something move on my arm. My arm that is UNDER the duvet! It is a spider! An Arthur sized spider! (I am grateful, incidentally, that it wasn't a Simon-sized one - praise the Lord for small mercies.) A spider in my bed!! And there was me, still glowing in the warm aftermath of a particularly satisfying muffin-baking session, feeling rather smug about becoming a country girl. Well, no-one mentioned there would be spiders in my bed. I'm sure I didn't sign up to that.

I am going to write an immediate letter of complaint to the Women's Institute. Something, my friends, should be done. Well, it's just not right, is it?