Barry

I was feeling rather cocky as I stood in the bathroom cleaning my teeth.  One third of my children was dressed in pyjamas, two thirds had cleaned their teeth and all 3 had been fed, watered and entertained for the evening.  Well, I say entertained.  We were reading a particularly nasty chapter in ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’; (spoiler alert) the one where Cedric is killed, and Voldemort returns to glory.  Usually, my youngest is being read to in bed while I put on my best voices and read Harry Potter to my older two.  On this occasion, however, my husband was at another one of those pesky teacher evening things at school so all 3 were listening, wide-eyed as Voldemort did his worst.

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to do stuff, perhaps it’s my age – I recently (16 months ago) turned 40 – perhaps it is a sign that my MS is getting the better of me.  Whatever the reason, my exhaustion grows with every hour of the day so that I am good for nothing by 4pm, which is precisely the hour at which children become more demanding.  On this occasion, then, I had very good reason to feel proud of myself. 

School run – tick.  Snack run – tick.  Brownies run – tick.  Dinner run – tick.  Book run – tick.  Teeth cleaning run – almost tick.

I had removed my contact lenses before cleaning my teeth and was just about to enter my bedroom to retrieve my glasses when my daughter let out a scream.  “Mummy, there’s a spider!”  My instinct was to immediately panic, so that is precisely what I did, until I realised that I was the only grown-up around and should probably put on a calm front so as not to worry the children.  I gingerly entered my bedroom and looked up at the ceiling above my window.  Even without my glasses on, I could see a big blurry blob of black moving along the architrave. 

I wasn’t terribly keen on seeing the spider in clear detail; however, I couldn’t let it just wander around and do as it pleased.  And so, I put on my glasses and every hair on that spider’s long, black legs came into sharp focus.  It was huge.  Huge and very spidery. 

I looked at the time – 8.38.  Surely my husband would be home soon, I tried calling him, but no answer.  I continued to stare at the spider, who must have sensed me because it stopped moving and just sat there, looking more like a spider than I’ve ever seen a spider look.  My heart was racing, every time it moved a leg I screamed, and the kids screamed, and we all screamed and screamed and screamed.  I secretly hoped that a neighbour would hear us and come to our rescue, but no-one came, perhaps they’d learned their lesson from the fish incident.

8.40 – a text came through from my husband to say that he was only just leaving work.  I groaned inwardly, he wouldn’t be home for another half an hour and a spider can do a lot of damage in that time.  The only thing I could do was watch the spider and make sure it didn’t run off and hide before my husband could rescue us.

With our 8 eyes combined, my children and I sat on my bed and stared.  Fifteen minutes passed and still the spider sat and still we stared.  Occasionally, a hairy, black leg would twitch sending us all into hysterics – my children didn’t know whether to laugh or scream, so they did both.

At last, after 20 minutes of inactivity, the spider decided it was time to make a move.  It slowly made its way along the architrave.  It was heading for my floor to ceiling bookcase; if it went behind there all would be lost, and we would have to move out.  I screamed at my kids to find a chair for me to stand on and I grabbed a pint glass. With my legs feeling even more jellified than usual, I lifted myself onto the chair.  I was now face to face with the spider, but my whole body was buzzing and my hands were shaking.  I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it.

I climbed down.  9.06pm.  The spider had a determined look in its eyes as it danced along the wall ready to set up shop behind my beloved books.  There was only thing for it, it was now or never, I reached out and cupped the glass over the spider.  The thick glass seemed to magnify it as it scuttled to the bottom where my hand was holding it.  Still screaming, I slipped a piece of paper over the glass and carried it out of the room.  As I passed my children they leapt aside screaming, and we all screamed as I carried the glass of spider down the stairs.  My legs were so wobbly that I missed the bottom step, miraculously the glass and the spider remained intact, but I’d stubbed my toe and was in agony.  Hobbling to the front door I screamed hysterically for my son to open it and I threw the spider out into the night. 

Five minutes later my husband arrived home and the children delighted in telling him about our exciting evening.  Always one to assign names to creatures, perhaps in a bid to make them appear less threatening, all my husband could say was, “Oh, poor Barry”.

On a side note – if you are in the UK – I am appearing on ‘Tipping Point’ today on ITV 1 at 4pm (Monday 2nd October)