Bridezilla Goes to a Game - and I get terrorised by an arachnid

We have apparently reached that time of year when the evil spider clans send their strongest members to march forwards on the dwellings of humans, armed with eight scary legs and the chief mission of finding a bolt hole from which they can commence Operation Horror on the residents of the freshly invaded houses.

Fiance and I are currently suffering such an attack, with the latest spider-gang member announcing his presence last week. The assailant elected to place himself strategically at the top of the tallest wall in the house - the one that flanks the stairs - before proceeding to sit there proudly for hours, not moving, just carefully observing whilst calmly conveying his intent.

We weren't prepared to hand over the ownership of our wall, so we needed to take action against the unwanted squatter. I set to work, assessing our options and the potential strategies we could wage in our war against the arachnid.

Plan A was the usual newspaper-based spider splat - however, thanks to his ingenius positioning in a very high, pretty much unreachable spot on the wall, there was no way I could reach the offending creature without the momentum of the swipe sending me over the railings and down the very steep stairs, where I would await the inevitable moment where the spider claimed his victory by bungee jumping onto my (probably broken) back.

Plan A was therefore swiftly ruled out. Plan B needed to eliminate the personal injury potential, and so I considered throwing something at the eight-legged monster. It would need to be a fairly solid projectile - something that had enough weight to ensure an instant squishing on contact.

I quickly deduced this was not a fool proof plan.

You see, I'm not a very good shot, and there's a good chance I'd take a chunk of plaster off the wall at a significant distance away from my intended target. Even if I had gotten close, the spider would have likely seen the giant shoe hurtling towards it and scuttled away, thus denying me my goal. So Plan B was also out, given the high probability that it would have left us with a startled, but still very much alive enemy, as well as a mark on the wall that I would forever glimpse out of the corner of my eye and jump at, convinced the dark shape signified a spider's presence.

Plan C involved a cat. This was possibly my most flawed plan yet. They are indeed masters at spider disposal, but I don't actually own a feline arachnid removal device, which presented the first significant problem. I could have borrowed a cat, but even then, I'm not entirely convinced it would have been able to scale a vertical wall to get to its target, so there was a high chance we would have still been facing a spider nonchalantly sitting in a location that is impossible to reach.

And I'm pretty sure that combining plans B and C would mean that no neighbour would let me borrow their cat again.

After consulting Fiance, we eventually opted for Plan D - which mainly revolved around us pretending the problem did not exist for the rest of the evening, and hoping the giant eight-legged spider scout would relocate itself somewhere more convenient for its demise. We slept with the bedroom door closed that night, and woke the next morning full of nervous anticipation.

Our plan failed. The evil spider disappeared and 5 days later, has successfully maintained whatever cover it has found itself. This does not mean I am satisfied. I leap out of my skin when I spot anything moving out of the corner of my eye. Even if that something is Fiance.

The problem now is the unknown, and that is far worse than our previous situation. At least for that one evening, I knew where it was. By now, the huge spider could be anywhere - hiding in a pocket maybe, just waiting to give me a nasty surprise as I dip my hand in to find an old packet of gum.

Or hiding in a bedroom based cubby hole (it was impractical to keep the door closed forever), waiting to explore and find a new home while we sleep.

Or maybe - and this is probably my greatest fear - it is just sitting and waiting for the perfect moment. The perfect moment to prove my point about why spiders are so damn scary in the first place, and why I never wish to have one living in our house.

I am half prepared for all of these things to happen to me at some point over the next few days. I am turning into a paranoid, nervous wreck who refuses to believe the wall-dwelling spider has simply slipped away quietly. If it has left the house, I am sure it will only be a temporary relief as it rallies the troops and builds a spider army who will camp out in the unreachable spot of our house.

In summary: I do not like spiders, and there is still a huge one running amok in our house.

At which point, I believe it is high time to conclude the lengthy spider-based ramblings, and move on to today's Bridezilla installment, where she has the pleasure of going to a sporting event. Obviously, it was a far from perfect day out, but at least she isn't terrorised by an unseen-but-still-out-there arachnid.

Bridezilla Moves to a New Office - and I go Bridezilla

For the first time since this blog started, I was prepared for what I was going to write about today. I had little pictures drawn, a quip or two planned in my head and the fire in my belly to put pen to paper. Or finger to keypad, more accurately. Basically, I was raring to go.

But then today happened, and everything changed - I had a new tale that I simply couldn't not tell in tonight's post. My preparation work was wasted (for this week, anyway), because I had to talk about a period of about 30 minutes this afternoon when I turned into Bridezilla for the first time.

And by that, I mean I suffered my first bout of wedding stress.

And by wedding stress, I mean wedding anger.

I was busy having a very constructive day at work when my mobile rang. It was a local number, but not one that I had saved to my phone so I was unaware as to the origin of the call. Imagine my excitement when the tinny voice on the end of the phone announced it was the bridal shop that I had ordered my beautiful, wonderful wedding dress from!

My heart was in my mouth. My dress! Surely it can't be here already?

No, it wasn't. In fact, it was very far from being here. The voice on the end of the phone started to ask if I was able to come in for the measurements for my dress. I was confused. Confusion swiftly turned to worry as a noise resembling a nervous giggle emanated from the phone, and the voice went on to confirm that they had actually got my measurements, and they were clearly marked on the piece of paper she was looking at. My worry deepened as the voice explained that the dress hadn't been ordered yet.

I quickly calculated the time that had passed since we had been into the shop and confirmed that we wished to purchase the dress that I had tried on. A wish that we confirmed by actually paying the full amount at the time. A method I had assumed meant the dress would be ordered immediately. The voice sounded uncertain as it tried to ensure my worry didn't turn into anger by politely explaining that the order form had been placed into the binder without anyone having the foresight to speak to the supplier about actually ordering it.

The voice's efforts were in vain. I had transformed from reasonable bride in a good mood to an uncalmable Bridezilla in full rage in a matter of seconds. If I was playing Buzz Word Bingo, the phrase 'bad service' would have been a frequent scorer given the number of times I managed to splutter it out in the angry rant that ensued. "My bridesmaids!" I went on to exclaim. "I can't get their dresses sorted until I have an offcut from the alterations from my dress that I can use to match colours!" Despite this being a fairly recent realisation, it became an incredibly important point for the purposes of this discussion. "I simply cannot afford to wait an additional five weeks to dress my bridesmaids, and now I have to magic the extra time out of nowhere" I continued in a haze of naivety at how Bridezilla-ish I had suddenly become "...all because of your BAD SERVICE", I finished with a satisfying flourish.

To give her credit, the voice at the end of the phone was very apologetic. And probably very embarrassed when she phoned back ten minutes later to confirm that actually, the order had been placed, but the all important piece of paper hadn't been updated to show that it had been done. In order to throw water on an unstable bride's anger, they've also requested a sample of the material from the supplier - due to arrive early next week - that I can use to get my bridesmaids' dresses sorted. I am under strict instructions to contact them if I have not heard anything by Wednesday.

While the shop hasn't shown itself in the best light, I have been reassured that my dress will not be late. However, that doesn't stop my concern about the speed at which I turned from a chilled out bride who is convinced that everything will fall into place, into a manic, furious monster who is convinced the world is crashing down when something doesn't go according to plan. I believe this means the wedding planning has officially begun (even though it has been casually underway for months). I don't think I am ready for the transformation.

I am, however, ready to post the next installment of Bridezilla, who appears to be getting more and more autobiographical as the weeks progress. Today, she is moving office, as I did this week - although fortunately, my transition was much less stressful than that suffered by our comic bride.

However, I would say that the brown lumps in the cup of tea were inspired entirely by real life...