It began with a spider, the kind that has knees up to its armpits and emerges into the sitting room with the sole intention of scaring you witless.
I’m no good with spiders like that, and Grace the cat, unlike her predecessors, isn’t interested in dispatching them.
The ancient little cottage is home to a lot of wildlife – including small rodents that have escaped Grace and found sanctuary – more discreet spiders, flies and mosquitoes. Grace is a consummate hunter, so there are also dead offerings: rodents of all sizes, squirrels and remarkably once, a stoat.
That’s fine, but I draw the line at big autumn spiders.
I went to bed and discovered the downstairs spider’s grandmother in residence in my bedroom. She was the size of a plate.
Soapy water in the road?
I decamped to the spare room and woke the next morning with sciatica. Who knew you could be in such pain? For two weeks I couldn’t sit down, lying down and sleeping was agony, and thanks to the impact of other medication, pain killers were an impossibility. I was consumed by the pain.
In the midst of this, I got up early one Saturday morning, looked out of the window to see what looked like soapy water running down the road. I put my glasses on, and yes, it was soapy water.
I was in so much pain that frankly I didn’t care. But my neighbour messaged me in concern. What was going on? We’ve had issues with flooding as rainfall levels have increased and the Highways’ Authority’s Helpful and Obliging Department hasn’t yet seen fit to give us a drain to take the water away, so she was understandably concerned.
Somehow, I got dressed (which involved a level of contortion that could see me enter the circus) and headed out into the wet morning.
Soapy water was indeed running down the road. But, thanks to the good offices of the Helpful and Obliging Department, there are no drains to overflow. Equally, there are no houses from which people could pour washing up water down the road. Well, there’s A Big House, but the residents aren’t really the type to do that.
So, what was going on? It’s been a good year for conkers, and as you’ll probably know, conkers can be used to make laundry soap. I’ve done that fairly effectively in the past, but not as effectively as a road covered with conkers which is then driven over by cars.
Conkers + cars + heavy rainfall = soapy water.
It was a small wonder of nature, and I smiled to myself and reassured my neighbour that, on this occasion at least, we have nothing to worry about. Then I trudged back home and made myself a cup of tea.
