Sunday 11 August 2013

How I hate DLL's

Spiders are a definite 'no-no', particularly those enormous ones that scamper across the carpet in the Autumn evenings and disappear under the furniture - and lurk.

And then there are those funny ones with a round, ball-like body and long spindly legs.   When I was a child we only had an outside loo and it was at the bottom of the garden.   These spindly spiders used to hang about in there and I was pretty scared stiff of them then.

And then there are ear-wigs.   During the war we had evacuees in our Lincolnshire village - they came from Leeds and were very street-wise (we really were country bumpkins in those days).   In a lot of ways they perked up our little village school no end, but there was one particularly horrible little boy called Harold Heller (yes, his name has stuck in my memory).   He used to gather up handfuls of earwigs from inside the black-out curtains and chase the girls around the playground with them.   I can still raise a shudder at the thought.

But the one thing that still gives me the eebie-jeebies although I am a grown woman (as an old headmistress used to say when I was a junior member of staff and didn't know how to change a plug!) is the Daddy Long Legs.   At the first sign of a Daddy Long Legs you know that Autumn is on its way.   And the first sign occurred this morning, when one arrived on the inside of our bedroom window sill.   Outside and I could have viewed it objectively - but inside immediately suggested to me that tonight when I am in bed it might make a b-line for my face and I might feel those dangly long legs across my cheek.

Time to summon the farmer to my aid.


I heard on the radio the other day that 'they' are expecting a plague of the wretched things this year.   I shall be constantly on my guard.

20 comments:

Compostwoman said...

Our cats LOVE to eat them - Yuck!

The Solitary Walker said...

Spiders and Daddy Long Legs? Lovely creatures, Pat!

Cloudia said...

Isn't that a mosquito?


Aloha, Dear

Pondside said...

If there is a spider in a room and I am there too, the spider will bite me. Really. We have watched a spider on the hall floor turn around to clatter in my direction - no doubt to bite. I am afraid of little, but the site of a spider sends me into a little panic. We have Black Widows here, but I have never seen one of them in the house.

Joanne Noragon said...

How about that. They look the same on both sides of the ocean. Perhaps they are world travelers.

The current cat will turn himself inside out to catch and eat anything he considers edible. It includes spiders, but for him ants are beyond the pale.

Heather said...

What a beautiful view you have captured for your new header.
I don't much like earwigs or DLLs but really dislike those big house spiders. In my grandmother's house we always ran out of chairs when all the family came so I invariably sat on the floor. One day a monster spider ran under the door and I leapt up onto the table! We used to call them race horses because they moved so fast.

MorningAJ said...

I'm fine with spiders and daddy long legs - but wasps are awful! And remind me to tell you about earwigs one day.......

Thickethouse.wordpress said...

What a beautiful world you live in...The header brings a song to my heart....Well, beautiful except for long legged beasties! Fear not!

Barbara said...

Gorgeous header! I love the sky.

the veg artist said...

I can cope with anything with legs. Worms are a different matter! It was not to do with gardening at all - my brother was a keen fisherman and used to keep tins of the things in his coat pocket and find ploys to get me to open the tins!!!

Arija said...

Oh Pat, daddy-longlegs, although they are poisonous, can't bite you because their legs are too long for it to get that far dow. I like a nice big huntsman in every room, they are great at munching up any mozzie that have squeezed through our mosquito netting.
In the last seven years, we have had plagues of mice, locusts, Portuguese millipedes, cockchafers, harlequin bugs, earwigs and South African snails. I've had just about enough of interminable plagues.

angryparsnip said...

That looks like a mosquito to me. Daddy Long Legs are spiders with super long legs and tiny body where I live.
Love the new header photo.

cheers, parsnip

JoAnn ( Scene Through My Eyes) said...

Any bug that gets in our house gets caught with a butterfly net and safely escorted back outdoors.

Virginia said...

I hate them too! I use heavy duty spray around the edges of the windows - especially the top corners where they seem to lurk in our house. I can't prove whether or not is makes the least bit of a difference but it makes me feel better!

We get florin sized heavy black ones with hairy legs ... shudder!!

Unknown said...

I love your new header. Daddy long legs here in Australia are tiny bodied spiders with exceptionally long legs - quite harmless. That is surely an insect you have pictured? Cheers

Rachel Phillips said...

In the UK the daddy long legs is another name for the crane fly. I don't mind them but they can be annoying when they drift about around your face.

Em Parkinson said...

Those lurkers give me the willies too Pat but, since my partner assured me that DDL's are in fact Crane Flies, I've taken to catching them in my hands and putting them out. It's all in the mind....

Anonymous said...

I actually like daddy long legs and huntsman spiders, they have character and are harmless - the Australian redbacks and white tailed spiders are a different matter - very nasty.
I still remember the name of my infant school tormentor, David Hill - a little ocker boy even then who despised the folk dancing classes we endured and proved a rotten partner by squeezing my hand mercilessly and painfully, something beyond my comprehension.

A Heron's View said...

I think that people are getting mixed up with colloquialisms. Daddy Longlegs in the UK and Ireland are properly known as Crane Fly's. Which one either hates or likes them.

Stuart said...

In the UK and Ireland, Daddy Long-legs refers to Crane Flies, which are harmless. As larvae, they are 'leatherjackets', which feed on the roots of grasses. In some other parts of the world, Daddy Long-legs refers to spiders.