The Spider Runner

Saturday, 29 July 2023

As enchanting as our Airbnb accommodation was on the way to Spain, the one we head to halfway on our way back is just as terrifying. We arrive at night, after getting stuck in one traffic jam after another, completely exhausted, somewhere in a mini-village near Dijon, ironically called “Charmes”. The apartment has everything but that. It smells musty, including the bedding, the furnishings consist of very old, rotten-looking furniture, everything seems a little eerie, as if no one has lived here for a long time - not even for one night. Then a scream comes from the room where Paula and Henri wanted to settle down. There's a resident and he's sitting on the wall: an insect or arachnid or whatever, with so many legs you can't count them. And not only are there a lot of them, they are also very long. When I try to capture the animal using a drinking glass, I realize that the legs are not just for decorative purposes: the creature is extremely fast. Not fast enough, so I can get it out the door. We find out that it is a spider runner. Wikipedia says “The spider runner is not aggressive on its own but tries to escape.” We would like that too, but we survive the night. The next morning we set off on our twelve legs and four wheels.