Incey Wincey

Autumn has to be my favourite season. It's like Summer and Winter had a child.
"What shall we call it?"
"What about Trevor?"
"Ummm...well I was thinking of something a bit more...you know...seasony."
"What about Salt?"
"Not that sort of season...you can be very trying at times, Winter!"
"How about Autompne?"
"Hmm...it's a bit French..."
"Autumnus?"
"A bit Latiny but ok...we can call it Autumn for short!"
Best thing about Autumn? I don't have to mow the lawn anymore.
Worst thing about Autumn? Spiders! Lots of them!
I don't like spiders. When I was younger I operated on a shoot on sight policy as far as spiders were concerned but as I've grown older I pick them up and release them into the wild which must be very annoying if you are a house spider.
Spiders abound in Autumn. You can't walk into the garden without walking into a web. Such a lovely feeling having a spiders web drape over your face!
Inside it's less noticable, house spiders tend to try and stay in the shadows, but you usually see one or two as the weather gets colder.
A few weeks ago my wife and myself were retiring to bed. Being a gentleman I always let my wife climb the stairs first. On this occaision my wife let out a yelp and shot back down the stairs.
It could only be one thing...a spider.
Smiling, I walked up the stairs and there on the wall was the biggest goddammed spider I have ever seen in my life!
Ok, it's easy to make that claim. I'm writing a blog and to make it more intresting I have to point out that this spider was the biggest spider I've ever seen...but it was.
My first reaction was to run down the stairs and join my wife on the sofa. Maybe hug a cushion for extra protection.
My second reaction was:
"There is no way that I'm going to pick it up with my bare hands!"
I took a tissue out of my pocket and walked stealthily to the spider, moving slowly so as not to startle it or appear to be a food source, all the time expecting it to either jump for my throat or scamper away. It was big enough to scamper...small creatures can't scamper. As I got closer to it I realised that my tissue wasn't sufficently big enough to pick it up with. I walked down the stairs and into the living room.
My suggestion to my wife to stand next to the spider and point at it so I could take a photo and get some idea of scale was met with less than polite enthusiasm so I returned up the stairs, took my slipper off and splattered the arachnid over the wall. I'm not proud of my actions but what could I do? You can't ask it to leave can you? If I had let it live I would have had to start charging it rent...it was that big!
The next morning I did a search on the web...pun intended!
Like I said, it was by far the biggest spider that I've seen outside of a zoo. I've heard that spiders sometimes hitch a ride with fruit from warmer climes and suddenly leap out to scare unwitting shoppers when they buy a bunch of bananas, so I searched expecting to find some exotic species only to find it was a common house spider!