IN this extremely cold weather the cats get craftier. No matter how many times we tell them that anyone owning a natural fur coat which is totally politically correct should be perfectly suited to going outside for at least ten minutes a day, they don't listen. Instead they have resorted to a height of deviousness which is rapidly going off the scale. It's not entirely surprising with the grey one. He's very much a home body. Indeed he really doesn't see why he should leave the house at all, but accepts that there are a couple of good reasons to venture out in winter. Even so, these are done so rapidly that I've begun to think that he's perfected a pee on the run technique because he gets from the front door to the kitchen windowsill, his favourite 'let me in' spot, in seconds. The ginger one, however, is different. He loves the outdoors in most weathers and can be seen stalking the borders of his territory even if it is raining. The last few days of extreme cold has, however, changed his habits entirely. He can be found hugging the radiators, crawling into boxes and making desperate attempts to get into any of the bedrooms to cuddle up on a warm quilt. Preferably when it's occupied. The airing cupboard is top of the list of favourite places to spend long days basking in the heat from the hot water cylinder, sometimes actually on it. Both seem to have developed a keen eye for anyone carrying laundry upstairs and can sneak along behind waiting for an opportunity to hop in and wrap themselves in a handy pillowslip. On the other hand, if they're downstairs and anyone moves towards the front door, both shoot up the stairs in case someone remembers they haven't been out for 12 hours. The ginger one gets the prize for the most devious. After he'd being missing for at least a day, not even rushing to the sound of a cat food tin being opened, I began to worry. He was not in the airing cupboard, not in a drawer in my bedroom (another favourite spot), not under the radiator in the bathroom. Then I picked up my fur (fake, of course) off the sofa and out of one of the sleeves fell a somewhat sleepy and rather cross cat.

I don't know if it's the cold weather which causes other creatures to seek extra warmth but the other night I turned back my bed and there on the pillow was a big fat spider. If I didn't know better I'd have sworn it was trying to pull up the duvet to cover its eight large hairy legs. There was a time when I would have screeched and run, and certainly spent the night somewhere else. Now I merely flicked it off the pillow, told it to find its own bed, and went to sleep. I fully expected to find a squashed spider the next morning, but there was no sign, so perhaps its found a warm spot somewhere else. Fear of spiders is one of the top phobias, apparently, and this phobia covers a whole age range, from children right up to pensioners. If you haven't got a phobia then you can't understand what seems to be an irrational fear. I once had a neighbour who was terrified of feathers, couldn't bring herself to touch one, even a little floating white feather out of a pillowcase. Needless to say, she didn't keep chickens. I don't know if phobias are hereditary, perhaps it's just that parents can pass on such irrational fears to their children by word of mouth, but my father was afraid of spiders. He was a big tough man, but the sight of even the smallest spider made him quake with fear and he always called my mother to get rid of it. I followed in his footsteps, and avoiding spiders in the country wasn't easy. However much I told myself that spiders were so much smaller than me, had no teeth, or none I could see, and were hardly likely to go for my throat, it made no difference. They always seemed to be staring in a threatening manner ready to run up my skirt with eight ghastly legs moving like quickfire. My grandmother, who wasn't frightened of anything or anyone, called me a sissy, and called my father one when he wasn't in the room. Her cure for spider fright would have been, had she been allowed, to have found the biggest, fattest most hairy spider she could and make me hold it to prove it wouldn't harm me. Fortunately this rather twisted aversion therapy was forbidden by my mother. The problem was made worse because I couldn't bring myself to kill a spider, having been taught at my grandmother's knee the rhyme 'if you wish to live and thrive let a spider run alive'. So a stamp with a size seven was not on the cards. When I grew up I was determined not to pass this phobia onto my children, so never mentioned it, only becoming instantly deaf if anyone mentioned a spider in the bath. Children, as children do, go through fairly disgusting collection habits where insects and the like are concerned and along with the slug collection, the caterpillar in the jam jar left on the kitchen counter and the muddy collection of worms in the pockets, came the 'I've found a funny looking spider in the shed, would you like to see it? Out would come a box and off would come the lid and I would be forced to display interest in my Nemesis without fainting. Usually a suggestion about letting it go back to its mummy and daddy would work, but sometimes the box would lurk for a week or so on the shelf in the bedroom and I would be scared to open it should a hungry eight legged fury erupt out of it. Travelling was a problem, because I knew that bigger and nastier spiders lurked abroad so would have to check on the flora and fauna books of any given country in case it mentioned a native species of bird eating spiders which, by their very description, must have been pretty large. I once visited a friend who was much into nature and recoiled as I saw a spider on her kitchen sink. She airily told me that he was called Sid and lived in a hole behind the taps and came out to say hello several times a day. I confessed I didn't like spiders (I didn't mention that they brought me out in palpitations and cold sweats) and she said I ought to look on them as pets and name them, and I'd feel better about them. Going home I hoped I wouldn't become quite so eccentric as to talk to spiders, but the next time a giant crept out of the hearth and stomped across the floor I called it Fred and used to say hello to it, a greeting it ignored, but the children liked it and we had Fred for quite a long time. Nobody noticed I used to sit with my feet suspended six inches above the ground. I tolerated Fred until he arrived one night with a bigger spider and they both walked into the hall cupboard. I hated to think there might be lots of little Freds soon so, hating myself for doing it, I sprayed a whole can of fly spray into the cupboard and slammed the door. The next day, however, Fred appeared again, looking a bit wonky but still scuttling. The coats smelled of fly spray for weeks. I actually cured myself of spider fright one day when the dishwasher pipe became undone and flooded the kitchen. With gallons of water pouring across the floor I had no choice but to try to turn the water off from the mains. Now all stop cocks are put in the most convenient places. Unless you actually like lying on your back with your head in a dark cupboard feeling around in the gloom (it's the same with electric meters, you need a ten foot ladder to reach them and you can never find one in the dark!). Having done the limbo dance into the back of the cupboard and been unable to find the tap I got a torch and knelt in the water to peer into the depths. There was the stop cock and there was a large spider's web all over it and on the spider's web was the owner, and a big-un he was. Torchlight didn't make him move, neither did hitting the sides of the cupboard or twanging the web. The latter only made him rattle his legs a bit. I knew what I had to do, and I also knew I had no rubber gloves on the premises. So I shut my eyes, leaned in, brushed aside the web and managed to turn the water off. As I did the spider danced a fandango on my hand but strangely enough it didn't worry me. It cured the phobia, and although I don't want to share a bed with one, they don't really bother me.