Spider! Spider! I don't get to exclaim that very often - and certainly, thank goodness, not as I am about to step into the car ... but today was an exception! Just as I was about to get in (and I had already been in the car to drive it out of the garage), I noticed movement down near the seatbelt anchor ... and on closer examination it proved to be a large huntsman spider. They're venomous, the others told me, but they have small mouths so they can't really bite you. Fair enough, but they hadn't seen how big this thing was. Anything that big had to have a bigger than average mouth for a spider ... and it was far too close to my leg to be able to stay in the car. Our first attempt to extract it didn't work and it scurried under the seat - and it was at about this point with no-one willing to get back into the car with in that we went looking for the insecticide/spidercide! Yes, I know this puts us in the category of "spider killer" but I know if it crawled on me when I was driving, anything could have happened. Several sprays later, and a quick look through the car without finding a corpse, we decided to risk it and, with a little seat rearrangement so S was sitting behind me in spider territory, we were finally on our way!
It was a "good" breakfast - good coffee; good company and good food. We were seven today: Sy and An, S and I, M and EE and ER. Even though ER hadn't met Sy or An before, EE had met Sy, and everyone fell into a comfortable conversation - about camping, knitting and ... well, perhaps not everyone needs to know the full details of those conversations.
Did I mention that EE and ER appear to have towed the rain here with them? While it was fairly dry when they arrived yesterday, it was less so this morning and certainly by the time we finished breakfast at Cafe Alfons it was raining ... which is quite an understatement given it was bucketing down. But at least it will fill the tank again (even though we won't need to rely on it again now the bore pump is back on track)!
After breakfast, we would have done something scenic or touristy with the travellers but it was ... raining ... so they decided it would be good to be in a nice warm, dry living room, perhaps watching some television and maybe catching up with some Knitting rather than imagining what they would have been doing at a caravan park, in the motor home, in the rain. As it turned out, EE had not had a good night last night and ended up having yiesterday's afternoon nap this afternoon. Then ER went for a lie-down and a read; S had a read of the Herald and I played on the computer (because it's been a while since I've been able to do that!).
We had Mouse's Borscht for dinner tonight as EE and ER were out to dinner with EE's brother who lives here on the Coast. They went to the Southport Surf Club - at Main Beach - and had a good time. S and daughter A came in for a coffee when they dropped them back to Latimers ... and luckily they had noticed L's (naughty) dogs on the way down the lane - so they should be okay to sit in the middle of the road for when the next car comes along.
M and Mouse are staying at The Big House for the weekend (for Mother's Day) so EE and ER have the opportunity - which they are taking - to use M's bedroom and the bed down the back so they can both stay inside tonight rather than outside in the mobile home with no power (as there are no 15 amp outlets at Latimers for them to plug in to). It would have been too hard to flip a coin to see who would stay out in the van otherwise. I wouldn't have liked to have called it - so thanks M!
Well, I have seen it now ... Maggie can get out through the cat door! I always thought she couldn't - which surely must be the reason she's always asking one of us to open the front door for her! But no, she is still a little uncertain of the travellers and as we were thinking about going into lockdown - and looking for Tinka to make sure she was in - there was movement at the back door - and Maggie was gone! She did come in eventually though and, after refusing to share the bed with ER, she secreted herself away somewhere for the night - but at least we knew she was in. In the meantime, the cane toads continue to come and there were at least a couple of them frolicking around the front yard this evening.
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