Thursday 6^th December

A spiderstory to end all spiderstories…

I won’t divulge the source of this sombre tale, because the young lady in question might not like to have the details of her plight re-told in cyberspace.  So I will call her Charlotte, and will tell you only two things about her – she is terrified of large hairy spiders, and she is (was!) particularly fond of her very own dear little car…

Last week she was cheerily driving along in her dear little car soon to be ex-dear little car - enjoying the bright sunshine and the splendour of our early summer days.  The sunshine was very bright…she unwisely and unheedingly lowered her sunvisor.  Maybe Charlotte is not yet au fait with the ways of large hairy spiders… They often lurk behind sunvisors, in cars.  All of us who share this debilitating and irrational fear know this.  Charlotte now knows, to her cost…

When she put down the visor, there was a plop in her lap and there, scampering happily was…a large and hariy spider…

She gave a short sharp shriek, simultaneously ploughing her car into a line of parked vehicles and setting off her airbags… Oh deary me yes… She was trapped in her car and had to wait for the jaws of life to release her.  Trapped with her large and hairy spider companion somewhere on her lap…

SHUDDER!!!!

(And no, the car did not survive this crash even though Charlotte and the spider survived unscathed if more than a bit shaken and frightened.)

India #37

The tour driver dropped us off in Margao so that we could organise our train tickets.  We easily made our own way back to our accommodation by taxi.  I think Mary, very sensibly, went back to have a bit of a rest, but I got out and wandered around staring at the crowds, looking for ratfamilies, checking out the book stalls, while Pete and Vish spent a long time with an endlessly patient clerk, through a tiny slit in the glass – presumably this is to protect staff from terrorists?  Or from germs?  It was all quite complex, because they were booking for four of us to go from Goa to Mumbai then to Varanasi, with a two-day stop-over somewhere along the way, and then from Varanasi to New Delhi.  This is a very long distance.  Pete and Vish finally finished leaning up to the slit in the glass, looking very pleased with themselves.  They had tickets for this very long trip, and it had cost us approximately $50 each!!  This is partly because the Indian Government subsidised the senior members of our party, quite substantially.  I think they got something like a 25% discount!  I was the only one paying full-price; I was going to go and ask the clerk if I could have a discount too, for being their minder, but I thought better of it… Much later in our travels, we asked somebody why we were eligible for discounts.  We have never paid taxes in India.  And in Australian none of us gets any discount for being over 60 if we are still in the work force.  We were told that yes we are eligible in India, because everyone over 60 is considered to be WORTHY OF RESPECT.  Golly and gosh!!