12th September

We had a very appley time this weekend - the first trial of the fruit-processing equipment Mick's parents gave us for Christmas! So, having recently been given a shed-load of apples, Hubcap decided to try his hand at making cider... quite a long, sticky process, and this is how it went:

It was a pretty labour-intensive job, and extremely messy, with bits of squished apple flying everywhere - I was very glad he'd decided to do it out of doors! But it was fun operating the fruit press, and the freshly-squeezed juice tasted amazing - sweet, zingy and flavoursome, totally unlike the stuff you get in cartons and bottles. We resisted necking it fresh, though... this batch was destined for cider, all 3 gallons of it! And by the end of the day it was safely installed in the kitchen, blooping away in its demijohns... I'm curious to know what it'll taste like, and what its percentage alcohol will be when it's fully fermented, but I won't find out for several weeks yet. Still, even at this early stage it has a dangerous look... like the sort of scrumpy that makes you fall over after half a pint!

In the meantime I'm having to make do with last year's bramble and elderberry wine - which has matured into a beautiful fruity smoothness. Quite a talented brewer, my husband...

7th September

Sniff - not such a great start to the month... thanks to a streaming cold, I missed one of my favourite Frei Co events, Ledsham Fayre, and poet Peter Wyton's appearance for Towton Battlefield Society on Monday. Hey ho - but it means I've been spending lots of time curled up on the couch with a box of tissues, watching the annual invasion of our eight-legged chums....

I'll spare all you arachnophobes out there a photo - but as you may know, the warm spring has made 2011 a bumper year for spiders! And if you're petrified of the current plague, I'll pass on a seasonal tip I'm assured actually works: put conkers in the corners of your rooms (apparently they hate the smell and will stay away).

I wish I'd known that during the decades I spent scared rigid of spiders. I've no idea where the terror came from... certainly not inherited from my parents. Dad had seen (and probably eaten) a lot worse things during his WW2 experiences, and Mum could scoop up great hairy horrors in her bare hands and toss them out of the window without batting an eyelid (while me and my strapping six-foot brother cowered trembling in the corner). I was never quite as phobic as some folk; I could cope with pictures, rubber fakes, and the little tiny 'money-spiders'; but anything the size of my little fingernail made me uncomfortable, and as for bigger... I'd be literally petrified, sweaty-palmed, shaking... forget catching them under a glass, I couldn't go anywhere near them! It made life very difficult when I started living alone - not to mention embarrassing, when I had to ask neighbours in to get rid of them for me! Which brings me to the point of this entry: I am living proof that arachnophobia can be overcome...

I started working on it when I got my first house. It had a big garden that needed maintaining - and as I wanted to do it myself without being in a constant state of terror or running shrieking back indoors, I simply HAD to get used to creepy-crawlies! I started small - handling spiders just a tiny bit bigger than I liked, and gradually working up... also watching the ones I found outside - like the big hedge spiders, which are amazingly beautiful if you can bring yourself to look close. I still never liked handling the whopping wolf-spiders you find round the house - although I managed it once when I had to rescue one from a real arachnophobe's kitchen sink! - but by degrees, I found I could catch them under a glass.

Then I started watching them, safely trapped; then one night, lying on my futon, a monster walked by on the skirting board a foot from my nose. Once upon a time that would have had me screaming out of the room and unable to go back and sleep in my own bed. But this time, when I thought, 'Shall I get up for a glass and chuck it out- nah, can't be bothered', and left it to do its spidery thing, I realised - I WAS CURED!!!

From then on, spiders became fun. Sure, they still have the capacity to startle me when they scuttle out unexpectedly... but I've become very fond of them, and enjoy watching them prowl round the house. Yup, Helmickton's a spider-friendly zone... we only bother evicting them when they trespass too cheekily - and that's mainly so as we don't step on them, or squash them against the sofa cushions, rather than through distaste. So, in homage to the present invasion, I thought I'd share with you the revised version of a little poem I wrote back in 2002 - it even won 3rd prize in a national poetry competition! Just click to read - if you can bear it...