Why do they always seem to be in the bath when I'm either the first person up, or the only person in?  What do they want?  I think it may be that they have a very special feeling for me and want to be near me.  I clearly recall several running over me at a family picnic out in the countryside when I was around 5 years old.  I wasn't a veggie at that time so I thought that maybe they were after the ham in my sandwich.  Not that I know if spiders are particularly partial to ham.  It didn't occur to my 5-year-old brain to stop and ask them as I scrambled to my feet and ran round in circles screaming, "Get them off! Mummy, Daddy, help me! Aaaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!".  This performance was shortly followed by boo-hoo etc and snot bubbles no doubt.  As I'm a bit older now (and no, I am NOT telling you) I don't tend to do the screaming and snotting much but I must confess that I'm still not that fond of our eight-legged friends.  I have nothing against them, and would never harm them - I just wish that they'd stick to their side of the bargain.  I promised arachnid-dom many many years ago that I would never willingly seek them out.  Only the other evening, I'd enjoyed a very relaxing bath and had gone to bed chilled and ready to face the next day.  When I got up there was a bloody great spider sat in the bath, eyeing up my flannel.

Well, I think it was, hard to tell really as all it's eyes were looking in different direction.  Needless to say in my half-dressed state I had no resources to put out said spidery friend and therefore had to leave him/her sat there.  I let Dan feel like my knight in shining armour by letting him put spidey back out in the Garden.  And yes, he did say goodbye very politely.  I mean Dan and not the spider.  Do they have vocal chords?  I mean, it may have said goodbye, but just at a frequency beyond the range we can hear at.   

Actually, that's probably it - all spiders come to speak to me, after all, I am a godess , or so the new wave new age pseudo-feminist press would have me believe.  It's just that I can't hear what it is they are telling me. What can I do?

Could it be that the spiders are envious of my bath products and want to use them?  Are they after the scrapings from my feet or my toenail clippings?  This could be another line of enquiry I should pursue.  Like quite a lot of women, I tend to collect bath products, and everyone knows any unwatched bath products left in close proximity soon breed to produce more.  They are the veritable rabbits of the personal hygiene world.  Maybe when I see the spider in the bath, it's trying to decide whether it wants to use the patchoulli foaming bath elixir or the lavender bath bomb.  Maybe it doesn't know whether chamomile bath gel would be better than a milky relaxing soak with herbs and plant essences guaranteeing a good night's sleep.  Maybe it's trying to figure how much deodorant it needs for all those arm-pits?  

It may well be that spiders don't like ham sandwiches and that's all that is available outside.  Perhaps they prefer my toenail clippings and bits of dead skin to make a good meal out of.  Mind, they'd have to boil them up quite a lot to get them to a chewy texture.  I suppose they could use these discarded bits of my keratin to build houses from.  After all, they're great architects - those webs are better than anything Wren or Gaudi could have thought up. Maybe in a corner of the garden, there's a great tower (entirely constructed of toenail clippings, foot scrapings, hair, bogeys and miscellaneous fluff -you know, all the stuff that's usually in the bathroom carpet or behind the door) inhabited by spiders.  It might be a spider city, or maybe they're building a spacecraft out of it all so that they can return to planet of the arachnids, just past Sirius .

Is it wetter outside than it is in the bathroom? This would really have to depend on whether it's raining outside or not, or whether the drains have flooded again.  I can't say I've noticed any particular meteorological phenomenon increasing the amount of spider company indoors.   It can't be that so maybe they don't like next door's choice of music and climb up the drainpipe in order to escape.  Could it be that spiders like Eminem more than Genesis?  They would rather listen to Queens of the Stone Age rather than Kylie?  I've never been to a spider nightclub so I don't know.  I know that when Dan used to be in a band, there was always a spider or five in the rehearsal room.  Maybe they like to listen to rock and indie stuff much more than we'll ever know.  How many ears do they have anyway?  Based on the fact that a human has two eyes, two ears and two legs, our spindly legged pals really should have eight.  Do they listen to different things with each set?  Maybe they're all hanging off the ceiling shouting out "that middle eight was a bit dodgy - and your drummer's shite!"

Is climbing up the drainpipe and up through the plughole a sort of Krypton Factor thing for arachnids?  They might have game shows like that and all be up for it.  "Endurance" might be the thing they love to watch the most.   In the realm of arachnid entertainment  the test of  a true spider may be to take the drainpipe challenge - climb up the inside of this pipe - watch out for the lemon fizz bath stuff roaring towards you, store the toenail clipping in your rucksack (mind it isn't blocking eye 7), sing along to this Linkin Park track, then answer twenty questions on the Industrial Revolution and you win a lifetime supply of flies.  

It could be that like humans, spiders have many interests - some are sat on the sofa watching Eastenders, some are sat there watching on a Saturday evening shouting out "It's answer C, you moron, how the hell did you get through the first round and why does that person keep coughing?". Some of them are throwing snail shells into the pond and weeing on your hydrangeas before throwing up in the ivy and falling asleep in the dogwood.  Some of them are at a Salsa class -careful you don't get your legs in a tangle.  Or, are they just here to make the gravy? Unless you've seen Eddie Izzard, you won't get this.  If you are Eddie Izzard - sorry for nicking your joke but it was too funny not to link it in!