Stowaway

...and there I was, just popping up to Palm Beach for a bbq with a few folks, stopped off for some water at a petrol station and as I opened my car door something caught my eye....can you spot it?

I'd already got in and out of the car several times before Shelob moved and caught my eye. Cor blimey I shit me pants I can tell you. I mean, the little bugger had been sat inches from my head for the last half an hour! Well...suffice to say, there was no way I was getting back into the car with that thing scurrying about right next to my head. So, I collected my camera to get a couple of 'evidence' shots whilst I took a couple of minutes to figure out what to do with said hairy beast. I had nothing to remove it with and the lady who was parked in the car spot next to me wouldn't even get out of her car. Her boyfriend was no better either.

This thing is a huntsman spider. Non venomous but pretty big and really really quick. Being bitten by one is like being stabbed with two pens, and well, that doesn't sound very appealing. When they spread out their legs they have an impressive span, but this one is hiding a bit. Apparently it might actually be scared of me (oh, the irony) and was hunched up in a defensive 'bugger off' posture. Well, unfortunately for Incey Wincey I was in no position to leave him be. I had to move him otherwise I couldn't get back in the car and I couldn't leave the car there, so i very professionally threw my hat at it. At first I just pissed it off but eventually after about a dozen attacks of my Indiana Jones style hat, faster than light itself, it shot off further into the car, somewhere inside the engine bay through a hole in the door. This created a bit of a conundrum as I could no longer see it. What also concerned me was the fact that It might drop out of the holes the pedals go through onto my feet. Problem was, the more I stood there thinking about it, the more I realised I was just going to have to get on with it - as stated I couldn't leave the car there. So, after twenty minutes or so I had satisfied myself it wasn't too close to my feet (mainly by whacking the plastic surrounds and generally trying to scare it away) I got back in the car and drove very gingerly for the next few hours. Every time i even thought something brushed my leg I jumped a mile...

Feel free to click on this photo for a nice close up. At some point over the next few days I'll let Andy know that we have a stowaway. Thing is, they like really warm dark places and inside a car is their idea of utopia, so I can't imagine it leaving. For the next few months I'm a public transport man. Don't like driving anyway (cough)...