Edible Nightmares

I heard somewhere that the average human ingests eight spiders in their sleep per year. Well, that did nothing for my insomnia I can tell you. It gave me a whole new perspective on what to look for in a bedroom. We watch those "fix it up till it looks like a magazine shoot" programmes on TV. But now I look at them and think .. "Heck no, that pretty hanging do-hicky thingy might look pretty but it is a breeding ground for spiders. No thank you very much." Now I look at those pretty as a peach bedrooms and think "I would move that painting/artwork to the other side of the room... and those curtains. Heck no. Frills .. no no and let me define that .. hell no." My bedroom of choice is now on the minimalistic side. Stripped bare of anything that might harbour a creepy crawly critter. Pretty is not even an option. Think monastic or prison cell styling. Maybe that is a new fashion we can encourage? Not a bowl of potpourri, but rather a touch of Miss Muppet's revenge spray. Curtains would be banned and frills around the base of the bed, well no, we have already established that frills equal homes for spiders, so no, we will stick with the steel framed bed frame. Hee hee no, we all know I don't enjoy frills and lace curtains, but I will cope with my phobias and put up with the minimal frill factor in my bedroom.

But how did this statistic about how many spiders we eat come about? I do know that most statistics are just sucked out of some idiot's thumb. Was this a thumb suck number or has someone, somewhere been sitting watching people sleep and noting how many arachnids fall into open mouths? Surely there are some areas of the world that are more prone to spider ingestion than others? And what size spider are we talking about? Surely not the 'big as a dinner plate' Australian version surely? More like the smaller than a pinhead type? Oh well now that I have given you something to worry about in the dark of the night .... it reminds me of a rhyme my Gran used to recite. "Of ghouls and ghosts and long leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night good Lord deliver us."

Just to freak you out some more ... bedbugs. Did you know that they used to breed in the walls of old houses? When the room was warm, the bed bugs would come into the room and feast on unsuspecting victims. The way that the people in the 1800's dealt with this infestation was to chill the room down and hopefully the critters would decamp and move next door to plague the neighbours. You might be wondering how they could clamber through brick walls? Well no, they inhabited wooden slat walls so beloved of the Back to back homes of England during the industrial revolution. Okay, enough boring stuff to bug you with.... onto other things.

I have been brightening up our garage wall. I dislike bland beige walls. And this wall is huge and colourless and boring. The garage is a stand-alone one on the edge of our property. So when you drive into our yard you are welcomed by a big blank space. Yuk. I did a sketch .. bought the paint and attacked the wall with gusto. I have painted about a dozen big red poppies. (One friend thought I said puppies and wanted to know which breed the puppies were... awkward moment there while I wondered what she was talking about.) But no, the poppies are because we live opposite the war memorial and I thought it was appropriate. My parents would sell poppies on the streets of Empangeni every November in honour of the fallen of the wars and that meant us kids being involved in some small way. Anyhow poppies at the ready I painted and painted .. and managed to splash red paint all over myself ... even in my hair! But I did get some paint on the wall in a semblance of a poppy... with strict instructions from my daughter that a minimal looking poppy would not be acceptable. I stood back and was quite happy with day one.... when a lady stopped her car and asked what I was doing. Really? Is it not self-evident? Anyhow, being a well brought up person, I said "Painting poppies." and then she asked me if I had an Anzac ancestor. No, can't you tell from my accent that I am South African and the chance of my having a kiwi or Auzzie family member in the war is minimal? I told her that my Dad and both Grandfathers had served in the wars under the flag of England and South Africa. She looked at me and said, "So shall I put your name down to sell poppies on Anzac weekend?" Shucks, what have I let myself in for? All I wanted to do was get rid of a boring wall and now I am being sucked in to sell stuff.

Barry's aunt Elsie died this week aged 92. The problem with us living on the other side of the world is that we don't get to attend things like family weddings or funerals. But on the bright side, we will get to attend our grandson Troy's sixth birthday this weekend. What do you buy a modern six-year-old? We were looking in the shops and both Barry and I were drawn to the 1950's combi van, die-cast and very cool. We sadly put it back on the shelf when we realised that 1. Troy has enough toys and 2. he would think we had gone doolally if we presented it to him as a gift. We opted for a bey blade .. which is almost like a spinning top. Tops are something we played with as kids and I still enjoy playing with them while I am waiting for my brain to come up with an appropriate word for a story. I have two wooden spinning tops in my desk drawer and reach for them in times of stress or brain freeze.

Well folks, enjoy your day. May your sleep be arachnid free and may your boring walls be the inspiration for great works of art. I am off now to renew my driver's licence and hating having my photo taken .. yuk. But it is a necessary evil sadly if I want to drive my car. Oh, that reminds me, it needs new tyres. Oh well better get moving. Photographs to grimace through and tyres to pay for with our ever dwindling funds.