Tuesday 28 May 2013

Bat Dog/Cat Fish/What Scares You?

A couple of the Little People decided to play dressing up. One dressed up as a bat, the other as a pirate. Later, they abandoned hats and scarves and went off to make a car with the dining chairs and set off on an adventure.

Indy was on the sofa. The bat hat was next to him. I couldn’t resist. I was going to take it off, but after I took the photo he went off to sleep still wearing the bat hat.



Meanwhile, the kitten has taken up fish watching!



He is amazing. So tiny and yet so unafraid of the dogs and they must look enormous to him.

Today out with Indy there was a tractor on the field cutting the grass. Scared? Too right I was. I’m almost as scared of tractors as I am of spiders. I have been known to get hysterical when they’ve turned up and started working on a field I’m on.

I’ve leapt across ditches and into bushes. It’s completely irrational I know. Today the tractor was already there, so I carefully walked where he’d already cut the grass, but I walked close to the hedge and planned to pick Indy up and leap into it if it came anywhere near us.

Meanwhile my daughter finds a snake wandering round her allotment and moves it. Her husband thinks it incredible that she can be so petrified of a spider that she’s stuck in her bedroom for half an hour too scared to move, yet she’ll happily touch a snake.

That’s the thing with things that scare us. It isn’t always rational. We’re all scared of the same sort of things to some degree or other, but my fear of tractors has always seemed ridiculous. Then we remembered the public service adverts that used to be on when we were kids.

I’ve looked for them online, but can’t find them, but they were scary. Maybe it harks back to then.

My dad, who gently picked up the biggest spiders to put outside; who was on the Arctic Convoys; who was generally fearless, was terrified of wasps. Understandable that. Mosquito larvae too – I remember showing him a jam jar full of little fish I’d found in the water butt! He hit the roof, but he’d almost died of Malaria, so again, understandable.

But he was scared of crabs, so when I used to catch them and take them home to show him (just little ones) he’d tell me to take them back to the beach as quickly as possible. It was only years later that my mum told me he used to break out in a sweat and his skin would crawl at the sight of them.

So what makes your skin crawl?  



20 comments:

  1. Heights! I can't even watch someone else doing anything height-related. I like tractors, though. Is there a name for your phobia, Teresa?

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  2. Not that I can find, Frances. Heights - now that is rational, but I don't mind watching other people up high (unless it's my husband, then I can't watch) :-) x

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  3. Love the post and the photos, Teresa! I like spiders and bats, but not wasps so much. Enclosed spaces scare me though - doesn't have to be a small space, just not somewhere with no exit if accidently locked inside!

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    1. I can understand you liking bats, Rosemary :-) I can also understand you being scared of being shut in :-) x

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  4. I like spiders, but I'm petrified of the mice that the cats bring in, especially the scuttling about and the long tail.

    A mouse ran up my uncle's trouser leg when he was a boy. He had the presence of mind to whip his trousers straight off. But ever since my mother told me about that, I have imagined all mice run up people's legs and the thought is horrendous. I always jump up on a chair, squealing, and leave my husband to entice them into a box so he take them safely to the fields. But he lets me carry out the spiders, wasps and bees.

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    1. Oh Joanna! A mouse running up his leg! No wonder you're scared of them. I like mice, but I wouldn't like one running up my trousers!! It's nice to know what is behind some of these fears isn't it :-) x

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  5. Where shall I start: the pitched black, tube trains, flying, toilets with no windows (all linked to my claustrophobia), cows, heights, wasps, horses... I could go on or would you like me to stop now, Teresa. I tell my husband that I only married him to sae me from all of these perils (he is very understanding). Oh, but I'm fine with spiders!

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    1. Blimey, Wendy, you must be scared to leave the house! I'm amazed how many of you don't mind spiders though :-) x

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  6. Rats... How anyone has them as pets I will never know. I grew up at a mill and could hear them in the walls of our cottage. I was terrified that they would come through the walls. Rats are very clever and clean animals, but it still doesn't make me love them. Spiders, snakes, crabs, bats etc. fine by me. Though I don't think I could live anywhere there is dangerous snakes and spiders.
    I don't like being shut in a small space or in a very crowded place. I hate funfair rides where you go up high and then race along a narrow track. Though, I can walk along a cliff path as long as it isn't to windy.
    I love the pictures of Indy & the kitten.

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    1. My daughter doesn't like rats either, Paula. I wouldn't mind having one as a pet except I don't want to keep anything that has to be caged. And you're another that doesn't mind spiders!
      I sympathise about crowded places - I can get very panicky if there are too many people about - shudder :-) x

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  7. Snakes! I am terrified...and now I want to stop talking/writing/thinking about it. x

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  8. Spiders totally terrify me. I leave little net bags of chestnuts in susceptible corners, and spray round door frames and windows with a chestnut oil-based concoction. There are plug-in devices that emit anti spider frequencies in every room, and another plug-in thingy that apparently sends spider deterrent waves through the house electrics.
    I think the little critters are getting the message. Any spiders that break through my defences (and few of them do) don't stick around for long.
    Don't like rats, mice, snakes, worms or crowded places either - but tractors, that's a new one on me, Teresa.

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    1. I have chestnuts round the house too, Rena and they do seem to work to a degree don't they? I don't mind small spiders or the ones with tiny bodies and long legs, but those huge house spiders scare me to death :-) x

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  9. The nearest I can find is Amaxophobia - an old term for morbid fear of a vehicle, or of riding in a vehicle. However, it's not specifically about tractors. My fear? I'm claustrophobic.

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    1. I generally like vehicles, it's just farm vehicles that get me! I also get a bit panicky near tanks. It is interesting how different our fears are. At least I can avoid tractors - claustrophobia must affect you quite a lot, being careful not to get shut in anywhere x

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  10. I don't mind spiders at all. In fact we had a house spider that we christened Harry the Spider. We reckoned that if we had a spider around, then we wouldn't have any other nasty little creatures. But if there is a wasp in close proximity, it has to go. Swatted, dead, immediately.

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    1. I would love to be able to not mind spiders, Maggie!! Agree with you about wasps! :-) x

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