Given that I've been living on a boat for about five years now, I've learned to Dread and Fear the Winter Months. But, more importantly than that, I've learned to prepare forthem. But things was different way back when I was spending my first month on the water, Ho Yes! I suppose the one caveat I ought to add is that, if my actions seemed a little off-kilter, I was fresh from the wacky world of divorce - well, as near as you can get without being married - and having to get used to being without my son. But, back to the way it was...
I still had no lights or heating and, despite the fact that it was May, it was cold. So, each night would see me hunched over the laptop that I'd charged in the car, shrouded by towels and duvets and squinting through the candlelight, like something out of a Dickens novel. When I went to bed, my drfifting-off thoughts were "How am I going to get out of this one?" It was like I'd played a ridiculously expensive and character-crushing practical joke on myself.
My first Major Nightime Concern arrived on my first or second night and it sounded and felt like someone dropping grapes onto the bed and the floor. Unfortunately, I was operating by candles, so it was hard to identify the problem at first. But then, it became evident just what the reality of this grape-storm was:
Spiders.
I'll say it again:
Spiders.
I HATE spiders. Not dislike or am made uncomfortable by - HATE. I realise they are just insects with extra legs and no abdomen and they have as much right to be around etc, etc - but, really. These things are evil: they look evil, move evil and probably swear. And there were dozens of the swines dropping onto my bed. Cue night on sofa, mummified in sleeping bag.
The next day, I went into a boat shop, which I have since learned is a chandler's. Trying not to sound like the wimp I am, I marched up to the counter:
"I've got spiders on my boat."
"It's a boat."
"So?"
"Spider love boats."
This was news to me. Spider love boats? This didn't tally with my Rosie and Jim visions of things. But, alas, it would prove to be all too true. Spiders LOVE boats. And I HATE spiders: a Conflict of Interests. Another thing I've learned is that spiders can swim. As if they weren't bad enough, the little fiends use their front and rear legs like rudders to choose direction and the remaining four as oars, without breaking the surface tension of the water. What next, I ask you? Rocket packs? The problem was that, while my boat was sitting in a marina, waiting for me to buy it, it had been cleaned daily. Once I'd secured the deposit, it was one off the staff to-do list; it was left to gather dust and harbour stowaways.
Anyhow, I asked old Matey behind the counter if he could supply me with something to get rid of the infestation.
"Humane or chemicals?"
This was a bit of a wrestle for me; I like to think of myself as one of the good guys and I don't like killing bugs, even if I HATE them.
"Humane."
Matey then sells me an Electronic Spider Scarer. Apparently, you turn them on and they emit an ultra-high frequency that is the same for spiders as a workman using a pneumatic drill is for us when we're watching the telly. Brilliant! So, equipped with my Scarer and some AAA batteries, I went back to the boat to exact my terrible revenge.
Fast-forward another sleepless night of the sound of fat bodies dropping onto my bed and I'm back at the chandler's the next morning.
"This thing doesn't work!"
"Oh."
"Yes! I had it on all last night and they're still there!"
Matey now eyes me like people eye firearms.
"These take between six to eight weeks to have any effect..."
Two months? Two months of living out William Shatner's finest B-movie, Kingdom of the Spiders??? I don't think so.
"What chemicals have you got?"
Matey sells me some Spider Spray. The label tells me that it will kill on contact and set up a repellent barrier for up to 8 months. Kay.
However, clinging to my 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' policy, I felt so guilty that I went around the boat, armed with a dustpan and brush, a glass and a piece of card. Those found were swiftly and fearfully evicted and sent on their way, which is how I learned they can swim. I must have got rid of about 150 of the creatures. I'll put it in word, so there can be no doubt: one hundred and fifty. No exaggeration. Then, like the slightly-unhinged person I was/am/can be, I stood and announced:
"Right - you've got thirty minutes to leave. I'm coming back with chemicals. You have been warned." This monologue was based on something nother arachnophobe had told me about spiders leaving if you talk to them. Something to do with them being able to translate the vibrations in your voice. This theory is, I now realise, complete arse.
So, I shoved-off for thirty minutes like I said I would and came back, armed to the teeth, with aerosols of something that should probably be withdrawn by the EU. As per the instructions, I sprayed everywhere, focussing on the entry points, and left for two hours. When I came back, it was like a scene from a massacre - there must have been about 30 balled-up little bodies dangling from threads of just lying on the floor. Out they went.
Having not slept properly for two days, I was looking forward to a decent bit of kip that night. I crawled into bed, secure in the knowledge that there were no more than two legs on this boat and that tonight I would sleep like a log. How wrong can you be? I'd reckoned without... The Duck Incident!
To be continued/drawn-out/harped-on-about....
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