How to cherish a tradesman

That should read "How to cherish a tradesman?"

I do try to be accepting and nurturing and understanding of their problems. I try to respect them as individuals by supporting them in their difficulties and understanding their limitations in respect to turning up on time/turning up at all/arriving late/leaving early/fucking off to their van for a fag and a wank every time I leave the house for a pint of milk
I spend hours listening to their marital/family/bowling championship dilemmas. I show concerned interest in their many operations, the dogs they've loved, their (mis)understanding wives.
I try not to be aggrieved when, once I can get a word in edgeways, I inadvertently mention something about myself and they immediately glaze over, switch off and roll their eyes as if to say 'Bloody women, only ever think of themselves' before handing me a drained cup and reminding me that they take it with one sugar.

Yep, its been hard to cherish a tradesman this week. But then they do have more than their fair share of problems.

Take these as examples:

Won't make it today I am afraid,

Get back Boris!

We have discovered in our house, that we know when a spider has crossed a line.

We possibly could not define this moment to the satisfaction of London Zoo or the  British  Association of Spiders, Tarantulas, Arachnids and Related Diplopod Species (BASTARDS for short) but, we could definitely show them a spider who has crossed this line.
Oh yes we could.

He's in our porch.

With the door shut.

Now, I am usually a bit brave with that sort of stuff. Well, I wasn't but then I went to Australia and I was cos I had to be.

Then I came home and after a couple of years I wasn't again.

Then I got married and had a husband.

But it turned out he was terrified.

So, we'd get one of the neighbours in
Or I'd suck it up using the hoover nozzle.

Then I left him and I wasn't scared again because I had no time for nonsense or fear.



6 years passed and I remained unfazed. I have an old cotton bud box that I catch them in and then release them back into the... wild? ...The hedge in any case.

Spring followed autumn and despite that being very confusing, my son was trained in the ways of the spider trapping. He learned all that I knew, at my knee. After many moons, he too could operate the box until one day, he asked for a box of his own...The following day, he came down to breakfast with a full moustache and side burns.

But, even together, we are no match for Boris, who would need a box extension with an awning to begin to contain his girth. Maybe even a tent!
He really is a huge fucker.



My son is a scholarship boy and so I knew that between us, this problem was surmountable.

So, after much stroking of the sideburns and fiddling with the Rubik's Cube, we are in complete agreement.

We hardly ever used the porch anyway.