Putting theory into practice

Spoiler alert: there's a photo at the end of the post which some of you mightn't want to see. However, I have put in more paragraphs than necessary, so as to, hopefully, prevent it being the first thing you view.

With a free morning, I wondered what to do with my spare time, although to be fair, it's rarely free or actually spare. There is always that juggling act with what could be done, should be done, needs done or would be the preferred thing to do. Today wasn't any different.

I opted to start of with a bit of housework, firstly emptying the clean clothes from the airing cupboard, and then progressing to vacuuming the floors. Whilst carrying the vacuum cleaner from its home in the self-same cupboard, I noticed a small shadow behind the ironing board, tucked up against the skirting board and the edge of the carpet. Ninety nine times out of a hundred this will be a wood louse but, in this instance, it wasn't. The creature's many legs were too few, too long and too... spidery. Oh bother, what to do?

The arachnophobes amongst you will be screaming "But you're holding the vacuum cleaner!" And I would be fibbing if I said that hadn't occurred to me. However, in the spirit of species identification and record gathering, I opted for a different approach.

Switching on the vacuum light for a clearer view, I could see that it didn't appear to be anything unusual (is that good or bad?) and it wasn't particularly spooked by my presence (is THAT good or bad?!). Cue a feverish few minutes, whilst I searched the kitchen for an appropriate glass and a piece of stiff card. Back at the sharp end, as it were, I was able to place the glass over the spider and slide the card under the glass, all without squishing the animal or amputating any of its legs (probably an occupational hazard for an arachnid in the home of a nervous human).

Now for the tricky bit... the lifting of the whole glass/card/slice apparatus, without leaving any gaps between the two which would allow for er... egress. A further trip to the kitchen saw me brandishing a fish slice and executing a perfect 'slide and lift' manoeuvre, So far so good.

I gingerly placed the whole malarkey on the kitchen table (note to Our Lass... stop reading here...), so that I could photograph the spider, with the hope that this would help with identification.

To be honest, it did look like a smaller version of the house spiders we would see when we lived south, so I fired off a message to the local guru to ask if it was 'just' a small Teg(enaria)? This was duly confirmed, with the added info that it was an adult male and it had nice palps.

Really?!

With that sorted, I could finally think about releasing the creature, so opened the several doors between the garden and the spider, and set forth with the whole apparatus. Things were going according to plan right up to the moment of release, when a stiff breeze caught the not-stiff-enough card, resulting in a yelp from me, followed by a swift parting of the ways, as human and spider went in opposite directions.

I sincerely hoped.