I like spiders. I don't particularly love the huge, big hairy ones that appear in the wintertime, running across the carpet. These I put outside to take their chance with the cold weather. But the normal sized house spider I consider a friend. The reason for this is that, in as much as I like spiders, I absolutely hate flies. One fly in the kitchen, bedroom or living room has me after it with a rolled up newspaper, not resting until it comes to a swift end. Many a dinner or breakfast has been spoiled because I suddenly hear the familiar buzzing. That's why I like spiders, They do my job for me, with no fuss. Plus, it gives them a good meal too. Just thought you'd all like to know that.

Ann, Then you would not have liked the huge "Tarantulas" we used to get among the bananas on the two banana boats I worked on, in fact one the "SS Tenadores" the last ship I sailed on in the Merchant Navy really ran into a problem with them.

On one memorable occasion we were going from "Gulfito" in Costa Rica to Los Angles with a full load of bananas when our refrigation system failed and the engineer in charge had problems getting the problem resolved, in a few days the bananas in the hold went rotten so we had to steam a few hundred miles out to sea off the Califorian coast and dump them,in the hold we found all kinds of Tarantulas and had to steam the holds to get rid of them. "Fun in the Sun". Mauri