Some friends and I were talking to a local lady the other day, and the subject moved to spiders. We told her that no matter how much we cleaned or how often we swept or vacuumed our houses, there always seemed to be spider webs in the corners. You just can't seem to get rid of them. She said that they have a saying here: "A house with spiders is a healthy house." Leave it to the Belgians to turn something creepy or bad into a good thing. (They really don't get worked up over much of anything.) We asked her if they came up with this saying because there is just no way to get rid of them, and she just laughed. Apparently this is so. I seem to have adopted a spider outside as well. She is very shy, so I seldom see her, but she is very busy. Her main hobby in life is making a web to connect my mailbox to a nearby bush. Each day, I knock her web down to open my mailbox. Each day, she rebuilds the web. She is nothing if not determined. You would think that she would decide that it's too much work and just build a web somewhere else, but this is not the case.
Apparently her daughters have inherited her determination, as well as lack of good judgement. They have decided to claim my van as their home. They build lovely little intricate webs on my review mirrors. Again, I seldom see them at work. Each day, I drive around and their webs are stretched and broken by the wind. Each night, they rebuild. Such is the circle of life.
Spiders are everywhere in Belgium. You can clean your house from top to bottom, and by the end of the day, there are spider webs in the corners once again. There are a few who prefer a mobile home, and they've set up house on my van. Meet Cynthia. She lives behind my rear view mirror on the passenger side of the van. (Sarah lives on the driver's side, but she is much more shy than Cynthia.)
Cynthia is in a bit of a snit today, because while she was out enjoying the cool weather, I chose to drive to the grocery store. Her web is an elaborate design connecting my rear view mirror to the door of the van, and she was forced to grab onto it while flipping and bouncing about in the wind while I drove. As you can see, there was some resulting damage. She wants restitution, but I told her to take it up with her insurance company. In my defense, Cynthia is a freeloader and has never paid me any rent, so I don't feel guilty about the situation. I've asked her to move numerous times, and she has chosen to ignore me.
I left Cynthia to her repairs. Maybe I'll ask the hubby to evict her when he gets home from work. Quite frankly, she's not very friendly and she's bringing my property value down. No one wants to get in on that side of the van. 
