This weekend Di, the boys and I went to deepest Somerset to visit Martin & Julie, who’ve just moved into their new home and were having a shindig.
This revolved around a game of cricket in the late afternoon, which was hilarious, there were some characters present, (special mention to Di for catching someone out) followed by cider and a splendid barbecue.
The boys were generally happy and well behaved, they had to be, the treat of the weekend was being saved for Sunday.
Martin is Spiderman – there is a link to his website over on the right hand side. He is a leading expert on spiders and we went over to his office to meet some of his pets.
He broke us in gently, with a Scorpion
This was actually a great idea – he explained how you can judge a dangerous scorpion – big claws, small tail means the claws are their major weapon, small claws, big tail, and the tail is it’s strongest point. Well, once you are no longer scared of the tail, Scorpions aren’t all that scary. It’s only as I type this now that I wonder why we showed no fear of it’s claws following that explanation, but it worked. It was much lighter in weight than I expected, I’ve held other insects, like praying mantis and stick insects and they get quite heavy. Wonder if that’s to do with their habitat – stick insects live in a place with decent availability of water, you feel, but I don’t know, that scorpions live in more arid places.
We then moved onto a Pink Footed Tarantula.
This was a revelation to me – it walked across my hands like it had little silk slippers on – it was soooo soft and gentle. I now have zero fear of tarantulas, although I am a bit reticent about spiders in my bath…
Maybe it’s not spiders that worry me, maybe it’s fast moving insects that I don’t like. Anyway, I entered Martin’s office with a worry that I knew I couldn’t display to my boys because of transference. I’m over it now.
Other highlights – the boys were climbing a tree in M & J’s garden and disturbed a Barn Owl. Di had never seen a Barn owl in the wild before.
Sleeping in a horsebox because my new Passat is dying, too badly to take a long journey and Di’s Corsa is too small for camping gear. Thank you for putting us up Julie.
And, I’ve noticed on this journey a large number of apple trees on the side of the road. Initially I thought this might be a council tree planting strategy – we have lots of cherry trees on the estate, however now I am guessing that this the consequence of people throwing out apple cores.
