My wife is caught in a web of fear

Even in my shed at the bottom of the garden I can hear the screams coming from the house. Shrieks of pure terror, often sustained for several seconds, followed by desperate cries for help. No, my family’s not being assailed by a serial killer. Spider season is here and Caroline is an arachnophobe.

One a scale of one to ten, I’d give her about an eight on the irrationality scale. She doesn’t insist that I search every nook and cranny of our bedroom to make sure it’s spider-free before she can go to sleep. But she has surrounded the bed with conkers. She’s a great believer in the spider-repelling properties of horse chestnuts, even though there’s no scientific evidence for it.

When we first got together and I discovered this phobia I made the mistake of asking her what she was scared off. ‘Being bitten of course,’ she said. I assured her that the chances of being bitten by an English house spider are vanishing to zero, but she looked at me as if I was a paid agent of the Spider King.