My home is a few hundred years old being a converted water-mill. So naturally, it's going to have a few nooks and crannys where the woodlice, moths and spiders can get in. This can be bothersome, especially in the Autumn months.
Also, I feel I should mention that I have a fear of spiders - I mean, I don't scream and bail but I will back off and cautiously watch it from a distance while someone else deals with it.

Which makes my story even sadder. *sigh*

One day, there was a girl (me) who was NOT fond of eight-legged things, they made her feel nervous. She avoided these things when possible and tried not to associate with such characters.

Another day, she found a friend of Charlotte's had taken up lodge in quite a low corner of the living-room. The thought of killing said intruder crossed her mind but never came into fruition because she was kind of a hippy and empathised with the under-dog.

Many, many days passed and a sort of unspoken,mutual understanding developed between the two - she would leave it to live out it's life in her lil corner if it didn't venture beyond that side of the room. It was allowed to wander over to the window to find food but that was all.

This Spider (it had no name but was determined to be a 'he') had built quite a castle for himself - a thick blanket of webbing that looked like nothing more but a tiny, miniature shelf up there in the corner where it would lazily spend the winter days just chilling out, as spiders sometimes do.

Now, the girl wasn't a complete tink, - she would hoover around the corners of this webby shelf to control its size, just to remind the beastie who was boss. And also, because sometimes she thought it was going to start a coupe, take over the place and invite its buddies.

A strange relationship developed as they observed each other with a mix of indifference and respect. Spider grew huge and still the girl was not that frightened.
And she did real well considering that the low corner was just above the screen she uses for playing the Xbox on, - he kind of kept her company and she was kind of proud of Spider for surviving so long (over a year) and for growing so big.

Now comes the sad part - kids should go to bed and those of a weak disposision should go make me a cup of tea.

During a weekday (this one, it was today *sob*) when the girl was off slaving herself for a cruel dictator (k, my boss is actually a really cool, old man), when she was earning some bread to buy food with, her one and only love decided to do a really good job of cleaning her house.

And, and....hoovered. And...did a really good job.

Spider is gone.
His wee shelf is no more.
I will never again play Xbox with my scary, actually-not-that-bad lil buddy.