I am woman hear me ROAR

At the risk of sounding like I am blowing my own trumpet, I consider myself a strong woman.  My mother was a strong woman and she raised her daughters to be the same and now I am passing the Mantle of Strength to my daughters too.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not the ice maiden or anything, I feel emotions strongly (just ask my husband about my temper), I can be in the depths of despair but have found I am able to pick myself up, dust myself off and just “get on with things” – having lots of things to do helps.  So in a moment of crisis you will often find me doing things, making “busy work”, it’s my therapy.

If something needs doing, I do it.  I can change a tyre,  install a new toilet, replace a tap, cut down trees, fix a broken DVD player, paint the house, lay floor and wall tiles, build furniture (I do however curse Ikea and their stinking allen keys)

But put me in the same room as a spider that makes a noise when it walks because of it’s sheer size and degree of hairiess and I instantly turn in to a character from a turn of the century mini-series.  I actually swoon.  Gentlemen in top hats and mourning coats need to come running with a bottle of smelling salts and ladies in long dresses that seem to really accentuate their bust lines must stand around fanning me. (Lets all pause for a moment and imagine Mr Darcy.....OK moving right along).

Now here is my dilemma, I love living on the urban fringe.  I love that I can stand on my back deck and look at a mountain with little, fluffy trees dotted all over it.  I love the continuous green canopy that drapes down the side of that mountain and all the way to where my house is.  Unfortunately so do the spiders.

I have some sort of built-in radar when it comes to all things arachnid (spi-dar? *groan*).  I know they’re there even in the dark.  My long suffering husband (who wields a mean thong) says my spider senses tingle. Does that make me spider woman? Disappointingly I seemed to have missed out on the ability to make webs shoot from my wrists. I don’t know about you but that would be  really handy to catch the kids when they decide to be naughty and bolt off  knowing full well that Mum and her dodgy knee will not stand a chance of catching them.  (They do forget that I was a wicket keeper and still have a really good arm and do not ”chuck like a Sheila”).  Lets not even go there about just how I’d look in one of those super hero, skin-tight costumes. 

You went there didn’t you?  Sorry...mop and bucket to aisle 4. I did tell you not to. 

It’s been a while since a spider has been stupid enough to venture inside our home. It has also been a long time since one has been brave enough to pounce at me.  It is the last thing that today’s visitor will ever do. 

We all know about the dangers of drop-bears, well now I need to be vigilant for drop spiders as well.  Little (large) bastard thought he could lurk high up in the beams of the laundry ceiling, you know just above the door so you couldn’t see him and wait for some poor, unsuspecting sucker (me) to walk in, completely oblivious at which point he would launch himself from his hidey-hole up high.

It was at that moment that my spi-dar kicked in, I don’t know if it was the down draft he was creating as he plummeted downwards that made me look up to see where the breeze was coming from or whether, much like Houghton who could hear the Who’s my super keen hearing could just make out the little voice screaming out banzaiiiiiiiiiiiii as he jumped.  Either way I sensed impending doom.

Time slowed down, I think I may have been shooting a scene for the next Matrix movie.  I dived to one side, he glanced off my shoulder and bounced on the floor. At which point I smacked him with the iron.  Well it has to be used for something right?