"Jack Campin" wrote in message
...
[in the UK]
There are no poisonous spiders here, although they can bite.

Not as permanent residents, but I met somebody a few months ago with
an enormous black scab on her hand that was the result of a spider
jumping out of a plant she'd brought home from the Netherlands. She
didn't know what kind of spider it was, neither could the hospital
guess. She just had to spend a couple of weeks wondering if her whole
arm was going to turn black and fall off.


I like almost everything but I struggle with very large spiders,
they give me the horrors.

The really big ones are harmless - I find them rather cute. We had
an army of them like eight-legged mice swarming over the back wall of
the house I lived in in Sydney. Now the funnelweb spider we found in
the loo one day *was* something to worry about, but they don't look
very special.

A lot of Australia's really lethal wildlife is pretty tiny - irukandji
jellyfish, blue-ringed octopus.

Yes. I'm not bothered about Australian wildlife,I have a problem with big
spiders. They frighten me. I try and gather them up in a big towel if they
are in the bath and put them outside. I do not want to harm them but if they
are marching around downstairs I want Boyfie to get them.
My mother used to say if you have spiders in your house it was a good thing,
it meant you have no pollution. Pfff to that, she didn't like big spiders
any more than I did and was hoping it made me feel better.

Tweed