The Deanery of Bexley is having a Mission Year, and to start us off, we had Mass in Blackfen on Friday evening. I arrived from work, feeling totally shattered, as I'm still getting to grips with my new timetable (it's a two-week timetable, and I'm teaching in nine different rooms with ten different classes, so "getting to grips" is a lengthy process!) and the start of the school term is always a hectic time.Not being a breakfast person (yes, I know) and not having time to stop for lunch (I know, I know!!) I was delighted to see that some of the UCM were working incredibly hard to ensure that we had some light refreshments available after the Mass...
Walking through the church to get a hymn book, I suddenly saw the most massive spider suspended above a pew. Any big building will have spiders, but this one appeared just to be suspended in mid air... and then I saw it was actually sitting in the middle of an enormous web which stretched from the roof of the church down to the pew. I wish I'd had some hairspray handy, as it was the most beautiful construction, and I tried to take a photo, but there wasn't enough dust around for the web to show up...
I tried to get a close-up shot, but I was worried that the "Beast of Blackfen" might be a little camera-shy, and I didn't want it trying to crawl over me at some point during the Mass: Beastie has got rather long legs...
Knowing that the web (because of its position) had only been made in the space of a few hours, it almost broke my heart to have to destroy it. But only almost... this spider had ambition, and would probably have spun its web right across the aisle if I'd left it.
The refreshments seemed to be well-received. I'm afraid that I was incredibly greedy, and wolfed down about 10 of the most delicious cheese and onion sandwiches... Not a bad start for the Mission Year. Watch this space for details of further events...
Gott in Himmel, Woman. PLEASE tell me you KILLED that SOB of a spider! Preferrably with a bazooka or something similar. Even the fire extinguisher. Don't you know those things come from Sa-Tan?!
ReplyDeleteNow I'm having daymares about that thing, and it's a good thing I'm 5500 miles away!!!
[There was some big creepy arachnid they found some years ago living in the cellars of Windsor Castle, some sort of prehistoric throwback from the maw of Beelzebub - about as big as a freakin' manhole cover -- this "thing" looks related.
I used a long scrubby thing on a pole to dismantle the cobweb, and the spider did a runner... or rather, it tried to. I stomped on it...
ReplyDeleteI'm not really into conservation of wildlife when the wildlife intrudes into my territory!
You stepped on it, you brave thing! I'd have been afraid it would have run up my leg.
ReplyDeleteLast time I had to kill something like that it was on my garden wall, and I grabbed a biga$$ shovel and smote that thing. My dog was fascinated by it, so I had to get her away and kill it before it ate the pair of us. [This was some years back as the dog has been an angel dog since 2000!