On the Horns of a Dilemma..Twixt Beauty and the Beast!

Caught Between Beauty and the Beast.

Only occasionally - thankfully - in life we are faced with an urgent decision to take one course of action or another to avoid disaster - or, at least, discomfort.

And so it was when my turn came up just after I exited the shower, fat, white and dripping, yesterday morning.

I had snatched the towel off the doozit when my gaze was caught by an apparition above my head attached to the rather high ceiling. I blinked in surprise, the Red Admiral, as it turned out to be - a large and spectacular butterfly - belonged outside in some madcap dance with others, spending its short life chugalugging nectar and fornicating on the wing, or whatever they do. In any event, it did not belong in a windowless, dank and steamy bathroom with an old geezer and a spider….

A what!!! Yes! I had bolted into the kitchen and secured the mandatory water glass and piece of paper to capture the sprite and return it to the garden via the kitchen window; had just reached up and placed said glass over the butterfly and slid the paper underneath when I thought I felt something on my foot. I wasn’t too worried, I thought it was just another capillary giving up the battle against cholesterol, but a glance downward took in the largest house spider I had ever seen resting - no doubt damp and angry - on my foot!

Regular readers of my articles, such as my dear friend, Misty, will know I often boast about having little fear of most arachnids and this is the case. But here I was stuck between the devil and the deep red butterfly, as it were - between the beauty and beast!

I couldn’t bend down until I had secured the butterfly’s capture and I then wanted to do the same for the spider before it nipped me and hid somewhere in the bathroom. Gadzooks! It must have been hiding in my towel; no wonder it was irate , I had just dried myself with it - a trip around my armpits and crotch would have made the most benevolent web-spinner inflate their venom sacs!

I dragged my self out of the bathroom to the kitchen with the spider apparently enjoying the ride on my foot and put the Red Admiral out of the window where it soared into the morning sunshine (a rarity here) glad to have been freed from whatever unnatural hell it had wandered into.

Using the same glass, I quickly pushed the spider onto the floor and trapped it in the glass letting it scramble out and drop into the lavender bushes, no doubt giving the feeding bumble bees quite a turn.

It’s the time of year when Britain forgets its nearer the Arctic than the Equator and all sorts of creepy-crawlies emerge and check out our houses. The worst is warm nights as I know you cousins understand. Moths! If you leave the windows open and have any lights on, your home becomes a moth Las Vegas or Disneyland. We don’t have window screens here. Then the poor little creatures think your lounge light is the moon and it screws up all their navigation sense until they repeatedly dash themselves against a hot bulb with the predictable outcome.

Not usually a problem with butterflies as there are no confusing lights in the day time and they usually visit, have a flutter around and leave by the way they come in…maybe the spider chased the Red Admiral into the wet-room?

Anyhoo, all’s well that ends well…didn’t I have five toes on that foot before. though? Must be my blood sugar again!

Hi to everyone.

Bob xoxo