Gazing out of my window I can see the first signs of the leaves colouring on the trees. We had our first portent of autumn a couple of weeks ago when a huge house spider ran across the living room carpet. Following that we have dealt with another 3 and another is lurking near the stairs somewhere. I’m not good with spiders, and I wish I could bbq them all. It was one of my horrors when we moved to Oz as the red back frequently lives under toilet seats and is known to snap at things that dangle too near. The fact they can be fatally poisonous just increases the sorrow. But for some reason they don’t live above the 2nd floor in a building and we found a flat on the third in ours. Continue reading →