Itsy Bitsy Spider

Right now it seems that everywhere I turn outside there’s a garden spider just like those in my pictures below. I’ve never quite understood why people find them scary, I’ve always found them to be interesting and as a child a source of comfort. When I was about 8 years old I had a morbid fear of burglars or “burgerlers” as I used to call them!

wasp for tea - copyright R.Weal 2010

I kept waking up from very vivid nightmares in the middle of the night petrified that my panda “Sarah” was going to be taken away from me when the burgerlers came to burgerlerise us – yes I said it that way too!

Luckily I had a very inventive dad – he told me that I didn’t need to worry about the burglars as he kept his smelly socks at the end of the bed.  Now everyone knows burglars can’t stand the smell of Dads’ socks and my Dad’s were some of the worst you could find! Then there was Dad’s very loud and very scary snoring and best of all Boris the spider would protect me and Sarah the panda.

For those who were not in the know, Boris the spider lived behind the picture over the downstairs hallway door and apparently if a burglar ever tried to get in Boris would jump out from the picture onto their shoulders and frighten them off, so they wouldn’t even make it up the stairs, let alone to my bedroom.

Well as bizarre as that may sound, it did the trick and I never had the burglar nightmares again.  I grew up feeling all warm and fuzzy about Boris who was our watch spider living behind the picture over the hallway door.  The warm and fuzzies for Boris turned into a general respect and soft spot for Boris’s eight legged family.  So here’s a few pics of some outdoor Boris’s!

Next time you feel an attack of spider heebie jeebies remember they’re a lot smaller than you and they do a good job of keeping nasty flies and wasps in check, not to mention potential burgerler frightening, so please don’t just squish them!

Come into my parlour, said the Wealie to her readers x