Mutants...

I've always been a city girl raised all my life in Edinburgh, until that is I moved out to the countryside just over 5 years ago. I am now in a small village about 6 miles outside Edinburgh and I need to tell you it certainly is different.

I remember coming to view the house I now live in for the first time...a nice quiet cul-de-sac of houses only a few years old, one main street with one shop and a pub, tree's everywhere, fields and plenty open spaces. A small village school and lots of lovely old cottages everywhere, it even has it's own little graveyard. I liked it and the house was sold!

What I didn't realise though was that living in such a location would bring previously undiscovered issues, for example, who knew sheep could make such a bloody racket bleating away at 5am, or that the wind is a damn sight noisier in the country as it rattles through all the tree's. In addition you have the fragrant smell of manure being spread over fields in the summer months and don't even get me started on the fact that snowploughs and gritters can't seem to find country roads in winter!

But I digress, the main problem I have encountered since my conversion to countryside life is the wildlife. Midges. Flies. Bluebottles. Daddy long legs. Slugs. Frogs. Snails. Horseflies. Butterflies, Dragonflies. Any other kind of fly. Hedgehogs. Moths. Foxes. Mice. Wasps. Bee's. Caterpillars. Rabbitts. All of them regular visitors to my house or garden at some point, Oh and spiders and here lies the real issue...I hate bloody spiders. Little baby spiders I can cope with...just, but great big mutant hairy spiders I can't.

Now before you think I'm over-reacting I kid you not when I tell you these things have bodies the size of a ten pence piece and legs as thick as matches. They're not your everyday house spider. They are beings unto themselves. They are enough to cause this Mother of 2 (and as such I have seen a few scary sights let me tell you!) to run from a room screaming and not return for hours!

Luckily I have better half who will remove the offending creature when they appear. It is compulsory that he kills them though, I'm not having them thinking they can come back again, or giving them the chance to mate with a partner and it's unacceptable to flush them down the loo, just in case they crawl back up when I'm peeing!!

Of course better half likes to laugh at my screaming and shaking and very occasionally will tease me by getting the offending beast and coming towards me with it. Following last weeks mutant spider visit (it was in my bloody bedroom the cheeky bugger!) I think he now realises his own death will follow should he keep this up!

Please don't tell me that the mutant spider is more scared of me than I am of it. That's rubbish. If I am afraid of something I would hide from it. Mutant spider is not afraid of me otherwise he would not walk across my lounge floor bold as brass, nor would he have the cheek to sit in my bath or for that matter to crawl up my bedroom wall in clear view of me. Don;t tell me either that having mutant spiders will help keep flies away - a can of bloody fly spray does the job just as well!!

Thankfully mutant spider only appears during the summer months and especially during warm periods when we have heavy rain. You see I have made a point of noticing mutant spiders movements. This year has been better than last and I have only had 2 visits so far this summer.

I read in an article that these mutants are moving into Scotland because our climate is getting warmer. Apparently they are fairly new to these parts and have worked their way north from the south of England over the last decade. Quelle surprise that we should be getting them from the English! Anyhow note to mutant spiders...fuck off to Spain, they have a much better climate than Scotland and the drinks cheaper.

Jenny xx