And so the stories begin: This morning I rescued a spider. The female element in this household screams when they see one. It was small about 8 millimetres, not 8 centimetres, which even I would have had trouble with. It is now safely outside and not sucked up by the vacuum cleaner which I think is a terrible death.
The above photo is of Paul and Moss in a church porch, I think probably in Maldon in Essex, for there are flints on the wall. I remember having read of the Battle of Maldon, a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and been intrigued as to where the island was on which the battle was fought, I have written about it elsewhere. I framed this photo because it caught Paul's smile and Moss's eagerness in our exploration of churches.
But what came to mind today was the cockchafer Moss brought into the house one morning in May many years ago. A large, what I thought at the time was a beetle,it is a type of beetle but classed in a different classification and has plenty of stories to tell through time. Of course it eats our crops therefore war was declared on it, though I think they now use a nematode mixture on them. And if you read the article in the Wiki above you will find it will metamorphise into different stages of egg, larvae, pupae and adults. It is also called the doodlebug, and when in later years I looked out for it, it did indeed have a slow bumbling flight.
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| The common cockchafer |
It falls under the classification of Scarab beetle, and the link with Paul is that he always wore a Scarab beetle gold ring when going out, which he had bought in Egypt.
Which brought to mind the other story of a beetle I had written about, this is the Tamamushi beetle in Japan its vibrant colour used as decoration in the early Asuka shrine, the beginnings of Buddhism in Japan. Paul had one in his collection of minerals and paint materials, you can see how it gleams.
My mother always said 'If you wanr ro live and thrive, let all spiders run alive'. I use the glass and postcard method to remove them from the house. My eyesight is poor now so I miss the smaller ones and the large ones only seem to be around in the Autumn.
ReplyDeleteThey are very useful in the house Pat, they eat all those tiny flying insects around. The bath ones unfortunately have climbed a slippery pipe to meet with a very slippery porcelain surface. I think it is the movement of legs that upset people ;)
DeleteThat reminds me the story of an incarnation of a loved one in the form of a spider. His wife did not notice that he had woven the word 'help' into the web before she chucked him out...
ReplyDeleteYou always tell a good story Tom even if they are miserable.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind spiders at all. I am not sure how it happened, but my daughter is terrified of them
ReplyDeleteYes it does seem to be the younger females, men of course never really say whether they are frightened or not.
DeleteI think there was a WWII bomber plane nicknamed Doodlebug.
ReplyDeleteThe mineral collection is interesting..
Doodle bugs were bombs with wings Andrew. WW2, apparently they would go overhead and then when they had run out of fuel, drop. If one flew above your head you would hope that it kept travelling, used over London.
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