Estate agents promote “original Victorian features” above the modern amenities that actually make the house they’re flogging desirable. Home owners brag “the oldest part of the house is Elizabethan, of course.” My in-laws even pay additional property tax for the privilege of owning a house listed as historic, as if the rickety plumbing, ancient fittings and draughty windows weren’t enough to contend with.
I wonder if spiders are the same. Do the spiders lurking in the shadows of our ceiling, spinning webs across the stonework of our walls tell proudly how the web’s been in the family for 72 generations and lay their eggs in the crib spun by a great, great grandmother of yore?
If they do, then I am sorry.
I have just been donated a couple of extension poles (been in the family for two generations, don’t you know) that with a feather duster slotted on the end can reach even our highest ceilings. The resulting duster is unwieldy and the synthetic feathers catch on the stonework. I cannot wind up the spiders’ silk with a deft flick of the wrist like the candyfloss man spinning sugar. I’m rather more like the incompetent angler momentarily snagged on weeds before my rod frees itself showering all around as it flicks through the air. The webs when they finally release their 30-year grip are heavy and black. But it works.
To say that we are now free of webs would either be lying or the clearest indication yet that the spiders’ silk is not getting finer any more than the print on the Calpol is getting smaller, but that I’m long overdue a trip to the optician. But the ceilings do look better. It no longer feels quite so like Miss Havisham’s.
How much more beautiful the mustard yellow ceiling is now that we can see it in all it’s unwebbed glory.
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