The Wonder of Wildlife
I’m not a huge fan of bugs! OK, maybe that’s an understatement. When my husband and I moved our family to Abu Dhabi nearly 13 years ago I knew to expect cockroaches, occasional rats and even scorpions - I’d spent my childhood in a much less developed United Arab Emirates and these pests were a fact of life. Two days after we moved into our new home I walked downstairs to be confronted by a shiny brown/black beetle-like creature, antennae waving as it clung at waist-height to the whitewashed wall of our hallway. My immediate and instinctive reaction was, after stifling a scream, to empty a full can of Raid bug spray on the poor unsuspecting creature, after which I phoned my husband at work and told him I was moving into a hotel until our bug ‘situation’ was resolved! I’ll admit that perhaps it was an over-reaction but having watched one fly out of an air-conditioning unit onto my mother’s face as a child, I guess there’s some unresolved trauma there. Anyway, when we decided to embark on our current two-year (and counting) adventure in England bugs and pests weren’t something I gave much thought to. Maybe I should have!
Each of the three houses we’ve lived in over the last two years has had its own unique pest problem. The first had spiders, HUGE ones, so Halloween decorating was easy that year - I stopped dusting for a week! We had hoped that the second house would eventually become our permanent UK home but, after weeks of listening to scratching in the kitchen cupboards and one horror-movie-style late-night stakeout, I couldn’t move out fast enough.
It’s an unfortunate fact that we pass our anxieties on to our children, and I’m keen to make sure mine don’t pick up any irrational phobias. So in our third and current home we’re embracing all manner of wildlife; we have deer at the end of the garden (lovely), mice occasionally running through the kitchen (cute but not great), spiders (conkers on every windowsill and check under pillows before we go to bed). My youngest daughter has discovered the joy of worms and snails - as a desert child she’d only seen them in books - and last summer we briefly adopted a stag-beetle (our online research soon highlighted that they’re protected and should be left to roam free).
And now, when we’re confronted by one of the monster English house spiders that now occasionally want to move in with us, I’m completely in control. I calmly explain to whichever quivering child has found it that the creature in question is more scared by them than they are by it, then scoop it up into the nearest jar, cup or glass (there’s always one close to hand) and carry it gingerly at arms length down the drive, across the road and at least 10m from our house! I once stood and watched a particularly big beast stomp down the road for 5 minutes just to make sure it didn’t turn round once my back was turned. See, all under control!