We need a new car

We went to my mum's place for dinner tonight, my brother's family were also there. Mum had been looking after his 3 kids all day so I offered to provide the meal. My sister-in-law and one of their kids are semi-vegetarian (they eat fish, there's a word for that I'm sure but I can't think of it right now) so I decided to do Mexican because we could have meat and non-meat stuff. We had taco mince with red kidney beans, blue eye cod in fajita seasoning with coleslaw, refried beans with chili, a bean salad, shredded cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa, avocado, sour cream, taco shells and tortillas...and then we all asploded.

The bean salad was an impromptu invention, I'm writing it down here mostly so I don't forget because it was actually pretty good.

There wasn't much left over.

420g can red kidney beans, rinsed
420g can sweet corn kernels, drained
1/2 large red onion, diced
2 small tomatoes, diced
handful of fresh coriander, chopped
1 tspn minced garlic
a few shakes of smoked paprika
a few shakes of ground cumin
a drizzle of olive oil
lemon juice to taste

Mix it all together and eat!

After dinner we sat around talking for a while before facing the fact that there were kids who really needed to be in bed. We said our goodbyes and piled into the car.

Adam started driving down the street and then suddenly pulled over and said "We have an extra passenger on the inside of the car."

Yep, there it was, lurking down in the bottom corner of the windscreen ready to scuttle across the dashboard at a critical moment - a huntsman spider. Not huge, but big enough - about the size of my palm, legs included. Adam was all for killing it but I have a soft spot for huntsmans and besides, if he tried to hit it chances were it'd just end up scuttling off to hide somewhere only to re-appear when you least expect it. Well, that or end up squished all over the windscreen.

So I grabbed a plastic container with left-over lettuce from dinner, tossed out the lettuce and, using my super huntsman removal skills (and an envelope), coaxed it a little further up the window until I could put the container over it, collect it unharmed and chuck it across the road into the bush.

As we headed off again Tom announced that if, as Adam suggested was probable, there were any more spiders living in the car then it was definitely time to get a new one!

As it happens we are planning on looking at cars on Saturday - I can't wait for Tom to explain to the salesperson why we want a new one.