A random outpouring about spiders, music and massages

So it’s big spider season. You know the ones I mean, those big bastards that appear at the start of the autumnal weather. My mate Vicki calls them ‘Shelobs’ and she’s right. They’re massive. And I hate them. I know they can’t hurt me, and yes, they’re more scared of me than I am of them, blah blah blah. Save it for someone who likes them. I want them out of my living space by any means necessary.

I live in an apartment, have done for the last 5 and a half years. We’re the first people to have ever lived in it, which may explain why we didn’t see any spiders for the first 3 years. I was loving this, all my friends were giving out on Facebook about the rise of the hairy beggars each Sept whilst Claire and I were sitting pretty.

Until one morning 2 years ago I woke up to find a dead one by the side of my bed. I tried not to think about the fact it may have been on me in the night, and convinced myself it was long dead and had been blown out from under the bed by a draft. I think I was kidding myself though. A few days later I spotted one legging it from under my sofa to under Claire’s sofa one Sunday evening. Cue Claire and I armed with the hoover, gingerly moving the sofa until we got him (they’re always boys in my head!). Since then the only ones I’ve seen have been in the bottom of Barry’s plant pot. (We have a bamboo type plant called Barry. We named him as we’ve killed every other plant we’ve had so thought that naming this one would increase longevity. So far so good). And the ones in the plant pot were contained and easily thrown out of our 3^rd floor window.

This year has been different though. A few months back after going to bed I went back into the kitchen to find a young monster sat in the middle of the kitchen floor. I caught him in a glass and turfed him out over the balcony. He was big enough but looked like a juvenile.

Then Sunday night, I was in the bathroom just about to brush my teeth when Claire comes out of her room with a cry of ”oh oh oh oh big spider BIG spider!”. I’m about to go to her aid when I hear her grab the hoover and figure she’s ok. After a few mins of the hoover having been turned on I hear her curse; “I can’t find him!!” I gingerly open her door to find her stood on the bed, hoover hose in hand, facing the curtain. She tells me he was on the curtain but has moved. She moves the curtain and I spot him on the other side, but I jump in the process so causing her to nearly fall off the bed. She sucked him up with the hoover and we relaxed a bit. She did move some stuff around to look for any more before going to bed and swore never to open her window again. I did a check of my room but seemed to be ok. I also left the hoover hose propped upright behind the sofa just in case he crawled back out. Yes yes I know. But you can never be too sorry.

Monday night came, similar situ. I was in the bathroom just about to brush my teeth when from Claire’s room comes a cry of “Oh god there’s another big one!”. This time she’d been on her bed when she saw him in front of the wardrobe, so she chucked a magazine at him and squished him. We spent the next 5 mins discussing the fact that we’d never had so many, and that this one could have been anywhere last night etc etc, but I said he was dead now. I headed off to bed, after doing another sweep of my own room. For the next 15 mins I could hear Claire moving stuff around again, and got up this morning to find she’d had a bit of a clear out and there was a pile of stuff to go to the bins.

The joys of facebook meant that someone told me that spiders apparently hate peppermint….I looked this up and it seems to be true. It’s not the smell, Spiders don’t have lungs, it’s the taste. Spiders have taste buds on their legs seemingly so they dislike strong herbs such as peppermint. I happen to be in luck in that I have pure peppermint oil from Egypt and have made my own fly repellent from it (which works wonders!), so figured I may as well give this a bash. My flat now has a constant aroma of peppermint and so far so good re spider sightings. I am hoping there is one in the bottom of the plant pot so I can conduct  an experiment. I’ll look later.

I love music, I make no secret of this, and have blogged about it before here. I listen to the radio at work most days, generally Absolute Radio. I’ll pick a decade each day normally. Their no repeat guarantee during the day is great, but if you listen to the same decade or the main station for days on end, you do notice some repetition. Not a criticism, it’s to be expected. Just means I make more of an effort to mix the decades up. They don’t always play the super mainstream stuff either, which is good. 

But every now and then, Darren will send through a little suggestion list of tracks he likes. I’m always open to new stuff so like the suggestions he makes. The best one he’s given me so far is Awolnation’s Sail. It’s a truly brilliant track. The music hooked me in, then the lyrics did. If you don’t know it I urge you to listen to it at least once. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I adore it.

On the flip side though, I can absolutely detest songs too. Often songs that everyone else loves. Prime examples being:

The Stranglers: Golden Brown (it’s monotonous and moany. I hate the way he sings it and I hate the melody)

Van Morrison: Brown Eyed Girl (Grrrr, just grrr. I think it’s the melody, but I dislike it intensely)

John Lennon: Imagine (I abhor this. It’s drony and dull)

House of Pain : Jump (Over played at uni, I really hate this)

The Foundations: Build me up Buttercup. (Again, over played)

Tiffany: I think we’re alone now. (Although I do dislike this, I will dance to it and do the actions. Might as well take the piss.)

I’ll prepare myself for a bit of a backlash about the ‘Imagine’ confession….

Ever been for a sports massage? I’ve had two in the last 2 weeks after doing something to my neck. Oh good god. Although awesome, I do feel like your one is trying to bore into bone through my skin. I have quite a low pain threshold so it’s a struggle for me, but, it’s bloody worked and my neck is fixed. Ended up buying a course of 6 so am going to go once a month now to try and sort out the underlying tension I have got there. Only trouble with going on a lunchtime is that you’re a bit spaced for the afternoon at work! La la la la!

Off to Rome next weekend with Jo and Mike. Can’t wait, got 4 full days there, we’re going to do everything. Super ‘cited! 

Oh! And this weekend is TedxDublin. Fucking delighted I’m able to go to this. Huge thanks to Aisling for the heads up about it all those months ago. I’m going on a walk around Dublin before hand too, with a Dublin City Architect as our guide, as part of the before events for the gig. Squeee!!! Yes I’m a big nerd, I don’t care. It’s awesome.

I shall report back. Until then, much love. Alles Bestens…may as well use some of my German skills…

S

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