I have to get something off my chest. I’ve done posts about Autumn and how much I love it – and I do. Autumn is my favourite season; I love the gardening, the dramatic light, the joy of shutting the curtains at 7pm with that cosy feeling that we’re semi-hibernating. Work can still be done but hot chocolates are encouraged – you know the kind of thing I mean?

But for me, there is a real down side and to fill you in, I need to tell you a little tale of what happened recently.

Picture the scene; I come downstairs in ‘ma jammies’ (pjs to you), with Scooby our dog, and I am heading for the kitchen with 2 goals in mind – 1. Dog out and 2. COFFEE. So dog goes out, kettle is on and kitchen blind is pulled up to let the glorious Autumn sunlight in. You get the picture? Things are going well.

I get my cup and reach for my ‘coffee sachet holder’. It’s a tin I got because I loved the look of it and it came with cookies. The cookies are long gone so I’ve been looking for an excuse to use the tin and had a lightbulb moment when I realised it would hold (hide) the sachets of coffee I appear to have become addicted to – especially since I found the pumpkin spice flavour. It also holds a few hot chocolate and other speciality packets I happen to collect, but I digress.

So, there’s me: jammies, cup, spoon – waiting for the kettle to boil.

Then I get “that feeling”. It’s like something out of a horror film when the hero of the film, (that would be me), realises there is a dark, evil presence in the room. I was aware of a shadow of doom to the right of my periphery. I move my head slowly, so as not to give the game away.

And that’s when I saw it.

A huge, uninvited entity with malicious intent and eight legs, parked on my kitchen ceiling. Well, I’m not having that. Something that size is big enough to pay rent and as none was offered, eviction was the only way forward.

Under normal circumstances, I would get a large jar and ladder and carefully encourage said entity into the jar with much swearing and sweating, after which, I hurl the offending squatter out the door. On this occasion, however, no jar in the house would have been large enough to contain such a sizeable horror.

Working quickly and with slight panic, I closed the door in the kitchen that leads to the hall, so the offending cryptid had no easy escape route. The other door was open and led outside so I left that as was, and grabbed my floor brush. The plan was to ‘encourage’ said entity to head outside, without prayer or splatting.

At first, things went according to plan brilliantly. It high fived the brush and headed outwards – but then, for reasons unknown to me, it decided to go full “Mission Impossible” and quickly dropped to the floor as if looking for some undisclosed trophy.

Just at that moment – with me, brush in hand, ready to swipe “it” out the door, in comes Scooby. He’d heard my exclamations of excited joy at the situation and ran in to ‘rescue Mum’. Problem was, as he came in, his front left paw was immediately placed on the offending intruder. Then, apparently feeling a tickle under paw, Scooby proceeded to lift said paw and in one swift movement, flicked the half squished entity under the door mat. Realising his error, he proceeds to start digging at the mat while I am shouting my protests and trying to brush the mat or dog or entity out of the way. The scene ended with the door mat, having flown out the door with a blend of brush, paw and telekinesis terror, lying in the dirt outside with a dazed occupant. There was a very confused hound indoors who couldn’t make sense of the Houdini move and was still checking under his paws.

Then there was me – sweating and panting but happy with the outcome, and now with a steaming cup of pumpkin spiced coffee in hand.

From that day on I’ve been checking walls, ceilings and corners like an Autmnal Terminator.

But…having said all of that….Autumn remains my favourite season!