This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Come summer, I like to keep all my windows and doors wide open to bring the outside in and see off the dampness and cobwebs of winter. Well, that’s the theory. In actual fact, I find a whole host of eight-legged beasties immediately decide that this is a personal invitation to move in and share my home, making their way in as the winter moves out.
The other day I came in from the garden and was in the sitting room for a couple of hours when I popped out to the kitchen to top up dog water bowls. Imagine my horror when, in the space of those couple of hours, I discovered a spider web going right across the back door, stretching from the door frame to the kitchen cabinets, so quickly! Sat right in the middle and at eye level was a small, fat, speckled-bodied spider merrily trying to take over my home and block my exit.
Now I thought this was bad enough, but as I sallied forth with spider catcher in hand, something to my right, where my table and chairs are, hissed very loudly at me. This wasn’t some small, insignificant sound, it was a full-on, threatening hiss. I must have physically jumped a mile, but at the same time, I heard a kind of loud, high-pitched “Eeeowwww” sound. I remember distinctly thinking that this was another assailant coming at me from very close quarters, so I quickly backed out the kitchen door and rushed down the hall.
As common sense kicked in, I realised, with Arthur standing looking at me, his head on one side, that I had actually made the second noise as I had fled the scene! Girding my loins and with two black, beady eyes scrutinising my every move, I said out loud to him:” It’s Ok bubba, I’m OK, you’re safe…..” taking the parental role as I crept back down the hall to the kitchen door, slipper in hand. Retrospectively I have absolutely no idea why I went to the trouble of taking off my slippers and wielding one like a weapon or how I even thought that ‘a slipper’ would somehow protect me, but hey ho. I plead the fifth, I was feeling threatened and was not in my right mind.
The door leading from the hall to the kitchen is a glass sliding door, so once in place behind it, I peered through the panes expecting to see a giant anaconda curled up in the dog bed under the table. Nothing! Very carefully and cautiously, I slid the door back, slipper raised should I be required to fend off a full-on attack. Poking my head through the gap, I scrutinised every inch of the area from whence the sound had come, but again there was nothing. Conscious of Arthur still watching me, I opened the door fully and stepped through, the spiders web the least of my worries as I realised I would be forced to hunt out my intruder.
Heart beating loudly in my chest, I stepped towards the table when there it was again, a loud rattling hiss! Unnerved, I moved to the opposite end of the kitchen, creating distance as I considered my options. Do I bravely conduct a full investigation of the area, or do I flee and get my neighbour, who has removed a number of misguided birds flailing about at my window whilst I hide, quaking?
Feeling guilty, I thought I should at least identify the problem before calling in the troops, and so (having put my slipper down), I advanced on the table. At close quarters I gingerly moved a couple of items at arm’s length when, to my delight and surprise, underneath a cotton shopping bag, I discovered not a giant anaconda but a huge, truly beautiful Stag Beetle.
Now, though scary in many ways, not least because of its size, I had, had a previous encounter with a stag beetle in this very kitchen maybe two or three years ago. Like most people, I fear what I don’t understand, and when he had come flying into my kitchen, sounding like an F1 bomber and landed right next to my kettle, I had fled. (There’s a theme here, I hear you saying.) Once equilibrium was restored, I was so fascinated by my giant friend that I had gone back into the kitchen to take a proper look at him.
He was amazing, his black, shiny armour smooth like a polished pebble in contrast to his enormous, imposing pincers, which, a dark, ruby red, looked like stags antlers. Strangely I felt enormous pride, privileged that this humongous, gentle beast had chosen my kitchen to rest his wings in, and so I let him be for a while. An hour later, when he was still there, I gently moved him onto a piece of cardboard, and I took him outside to the table in the shade and placed a bee bath of sugar water beside him.
This memory is strong in my mind. I greeted this new specimen as a friend, talking out loud to him and tentatively stroking his back with the tip of my finger. Having retrieved the spider catcher and removed my other unwanted guest, he let me very carefully slide him onto a magazine. Safe, I once again moved him into the garden and into the shade, making up a saucer of sugar water which I placed beside him should he need a bit of a boost. Like last time I went online and reported my sighting, and three hours later, when I went outside…………he was gone!