In Mrs P's defence - I was called by Mrs DC last week to remove a spider from the bedroom wall, about 15 miles from Mrs P's bedroom wall..
Now in the DC house there's a big disagreement as to what should happen to arachnids* discovered lurking indoors. Mrs DC is in favour of squashing first and asking questions later. I rather like them, and just pick them up and throw then out through the nearest door or window. If I'm here I'm called to remove them, if I'm not it's curtains for the spider!
That particular evening I was summonsed, and told to remove the spider on the wall beside the table on her side of the bed. Thinking nothing of it I went round and looked. Then looked again. Then said "wait here".
I went back downstairs, and reappeared a minute or so later with a ruler, only to be told that if it ran under the bed, or worse still into the bed, while I was measuring it I'd be joining it outside for the night, or be being squashed in its place...
The monster didn't even move as I approached. It just sat where it was while I measured it, and announced the result of the measure-in.
Now I had to remove it. Preparation was made, the window opened ready. I'm not sure how much English the average spider can understand, but presumably an unnatural, elephantine spider, which had quite clearly been hatched and bred somewhere near Hinkley Point**, could understand quite clearly that it had two choices. It could surrender peacefully to me and spend a rather cold night in the garden, or it could run away and risk being stood on by Mrs DC.
I didn't know at the time that I was dealing with the arthropod brain of Britain 2009, and approached the beastie with some trepidation. After all, if I hurt it, it might have freinds waiting to spin enough webs, all in proportion with their size, to catch me when I tried to leave the room! I moved my hand over her and slowly closed my fingers around her body. A wriggle. Where had all the bits of leg gone which had been sticking out between my fingers?
I picked her up and moved to the window, stuck my arm out, and opened the palm of my hand. There in the middle was a black, roughly round, blob. It was no bigger than a twenty pence coin, with a framework of folded up legs around the outside.
I watched, amazed, as this little animal unwound itself, spread its legs out across the full size of the palm of my hand, and then launched itself groundwards attached to its end of an invisible thread.
Mrs DC seemed quite impressed that I would even think of taking on such a dangerous, huge and ferocious animal - a lion, a great white, no problem, but a spider - well!
That measurement: 130mm from leg tip to leg tip (a fraction over 5")
* Except spider mites - too small to catch and squash so we import predators for them. They attack house plants.
** Nuclear power station on the Somerset coast.
