My own Charlotte's Web

A few weeks ago I was taking a shower and I turned around and looked up in the corner of the room and saw a spider looking down on me. 

It wasn't very big, but I'm not keen on spiders so I planned to go and get the flyspray as soon as I got out of the shower.  But I forgot all about it.

The next day I took another shower (I'm good like that) and out came the spider to sit on the wall to look down on me.  Again, I planned to get rid of it and again I forgot.

This went on for several days.  Occasionally while cleaning my teeth or brushing my hair, I would remember the spider and look up in the corner - but I never saw any sight of it. I don't know where it was hiding and I never saw it unless I was actually in the shower.

Eventually there came a day when I realised why the spider was hiding and why it came out every time I had a shower.  She'd laid a nest of eggs. And they'd hatched into dozens of tiny little speck-sized baby spiders.

"Well now it's really time to get rid of them!" I thought. 

But something held me back.

Each day when I showered, the mother spider would climb out on the web over her babies, looking down on them (and me) and making sure that everything was ok.  She was never aggressive and she never came anywhere near me.  The baby spiders would sprawl out across the window sill, no doubt picking up tiny drops of water and mist from the shower and maybe having their own little baths.  It was kind of endearing and I couldn't make up my mind to take any action on them while they were so small.

In true Charlotte's Web fashion, the mother spider died yesterday, still protectively hanging over her web. 

I think I'll wait for the babies to grow a little bit bigger and then I'll find a way to get them safely out into the garden.  It's the least I can do for her.