AN UNINVITED GUEST

                                                                    or

              THERE'S SOMETHING NASTY IN THE DOWNSTAIRS LOO!

Troubles never come singly, it is all too true,but with everything else which is going on

or in the case of the cat having her kittens,not going on ,our downstairs loo has been infested with a strange spider!

Not a great problem on the face of it,you might be forgiven for supposing,but you would be quite wrong.

You see this spider is very,very,odd and the photograph above does not do justice to it's strange features.

To begin with it has the body of an insect rather than a spider and although it does have eigth legs they are red in colour. I Has a pale body and a dark brown thorax,unlike a spider it’s body is not soft,instead it has a hard shiny carapace,like a fly.

It has two huge eyes and we can see no evidence of it's having the usual eight.

Poor old Pa has to use the downstairs loo most of the time,the alternative is a trip on the stair lift which takes rather longer than is comfortable for him under the circumstances.

I recently cured myself of a lifelong fear of spiders but I find that this does not include weird ones such as we are currently harbouring.

My son feels as I do and even the cats are not keen.

Now come the questions, what is it? Where did it come from? And more to the point ,where did it go?

It was last seen disappearing behind the cistern in the early hours of the morning....it has not been seen since. Pa is afraid that it is still in there and I am afraid that it is not and had spent much time turning out the kitchen cupboards with the aid of a litter picking device!

We are at present on |red alert and shall be until the creature can be persuaded to depart. In the mean time I have sent what pictures have to a couple of spider experts ,it would be something to discover the thing to be harmless,I must say it looks anything but!”