Confronting my phobia head on.

June Challenge: A phobia

The things I do for blip!
1. Search garden for large black slugs, under bricks, in the log pile - none.
2. Coax a hideous pale substitute onto a stick.
3. Throw bucket of water on garden path.
4. Place slug on wet patch.
5. Lie down on dry patch of path with camera.
6. Take 35 shots of a ghastly creature slithering towards me.

This is as good as it's ever going to get, I surrender!

It's those huge black ones that I abhor, following a nightmare as a child that I remember so vividly.

I must have been very young as I recall standing up in my cot in the night, holding the bars and screaming. My father came in and asked what was wrong. I told him there was a giant slug on my back and I couldn't get it off.

I remember him pulling and heaving at the monster that extended the length of my spine, the slurping noise as its grip eventually loosened and my father throwing it out of the window.

I heard it land on the concrete path below with a thud.

Has it gone? Has it gone? I kept asking. "Yes, it's dead" he replied.

I remember waking the next morning and immediately looking out of the window, from my cot and the slug not being on the path below. It must still be alive and ready to get me again, I thought.

Years later, when I asked my parents about this nightmare, they had no recollection of the incident.

I still find it remarkable that I have such a vivid memory from when I must have been under 3 yrs old, and that it has had such an impact on my life.

It is not so much a phobia now as an intense dislike.

Living in a draughty, damp cottage, when it is very dry outside, slugs come inside, where the conditions are more to their liking. Because I live on my own I have to 'deal' with them.

Strangely enough I hate killing them and the ensuing squidging sensation more than taking them outside and slinging them into the hedge.

Let's not talk about slugs any more. Just in case dreams can come true

I'm resting quietly now with a restorative sloe gin... or two.

June Challenge

1. Inspired by...
2. A toy
3. Green and yellow
4. Drink
5. Sky
6. Descend
7. Passages, Real & In Time
8. Dusk
9. 4 of a kind
10. A snack
11. A friend
12.Take 12
13. On a bench
14. A flag
15.Shadows
16. A phobia
17. A love for...
18. Flame
19. Colorful
20. Fast
21.Welcome summer
22.With wings
23. Pink
24.Make believe
25.Through a window
26. A passion
27. A tomato
28. Music. How you listen
29.Through a lens
30. Playful

I thought I'd give it a go!