Slipping a piece of card beneath a glass, I gave my younger daughter Carley a reassuring smile.
‘Don’t worry, darling, Incy Wincy won’t hurt you,’ I soothed.
Neither Carley, 8, nor her big sister Caitlin, 12, were fans of creepy-crawlies.
If they found a spider in our house, they always shouted for me.
‘Mummy! Spider!’ they’d scream.
I wasn’t bothered, used a glass and a piece of card to chuck them into the garden.
My eldest, Jamie, 14, wasn’t squeamish, either.
One day, in March 2019, I was weeding in the garden when I spotted two spiders among the flowers.
They were funny-looking, with big, bulbous bodies.
‘That looks like a skull and crossbones,’ said Jamie, pointing to the pattern on the spiders’ backs.
Something about those markings rang a…
