The Spider

I'm not frightened of Spiders, I rescue friends from Giant-Hide-Behind-The-Sofa Spiders. In fact anyone who knows me, knows that the only thing I am frightened of is Snakes, not teeny weeny Spiders. The other morning I was up very early and sitting on the sofa when out of the corner of my eye I saw something move. I was more than a little sleep deprived and thought for a moment that it was one of my Cats, it was about the same size after all. Then I remembered that the cats were still snoozing in the kitchen behind a closed door.

I looked over to see a spider calming walking across my living room towards the TV unit. As he ducked to go under the Television Unit (I've measured the gap it is 2 1/2 inches) I swear that he looked back at me over four of his eight shoulders with a "How You Doing?" sort of look. I decided like all sane and rational people that I had imagined this. I mean nobody has house spiders that big, I was obviously hallucinating.

The next night I was up rather late. Again I was sitting on the sofa when something moved from under the TV unit in what would be the most direct route to the sofa. It was the spider. This time he kept his head down and ran full pelt to the sofa, as if he was going to devour me. I very quickly turned everything off and vanished upstairs. Like I said, I'm not frightened of spiders but giant, sprinting, devouring, spiders are a different matter.

I had mentioned the spider on Twitter a couple of times, and so like a good Twitter following husband Daddy knew all about the giant spider that had decided to move in with us. Of course because he hadn't seen the giant sprinting spider and so was slightly dubious about my claim of his size and speed. Then again he didn't believe me when I said that Bear from The Big Blue House was stalking me until he witnessed it with his own eyes. 

Then it happened. 

The Spider got bored of being downstairs and whilst we were sleeping climbed the stairs and made his way into my bedroom. Where he climbed to the top of a wall (to get a good view of me sleeping maybe?) and sat there waiting to be discovered. Daddy spotted him first high up on the wall watching and waiting for the right time to make his move. We called the children to come and see the Spider that has been following Mummy and they both WOW'ed at his size, before quickly disappearing out of my room.

The spider vanished again, but I know that he is somewhere in the house. Top Ender, Big Boy and I have looked everywhere we could think a spider might like to live and have had no joy in finding him, despite being the size of a small cat, he is very good at hiding. So there you have it the largest house spider in the world.