I've had to come to terms with spiders... living on the south coast we didn't think Black Widows were common so imagine our suprise when we found a relation of the Black Widow family had set up nest in our shed...
... so we called out the expert. Paul Hilliard, Curator of Arachnida, Department of Entomology, The Natural History Museum came down to visit the house and see what was what. He cheerfully declared that if we were bitten we could be hospitalised, but that we had no cause to worry.
Since then things have been interesting... each forrey into the garden brings something interesting if you happen to poke around. I try not to poke around.