Well, what else would you do with 44lbs of spaghetti?

Oct 28 2008 by Tony Henderson, The Journal

SPAGHETTI will be off the menu for Annette Morris for some considerable time after her kitchen exploits last night.

Annette spent more than three hours cooking 44Ibs of spaghetti at her home in West Rainton, County Durham.

It will be used today by more than 60 children and their families to construct a 60ft-wide spider’s web at Durham Wildlife Trust’s Rainton Meadows nature reserve.

The spaghetti has been donated by Houghton-le-Spring’s Co-op store, while Morrisons supermarket at Doxford Park in Sunderland has given 30lb of lard. This will be mixed with bird seed and turned into spiders, flies and bugs which will be inserted into the web.

The giant web will then be left for birds to eat.

Trust education leader Annette, who is also studying for a fine art degree at Newcastle University, said: “I will be sick of looking at spaghetti which will be taken to the site in buckets. I won’t be eating it again for a good while.”

The event, which is fully booked, will involve a morning’s research around the reserve, with participants sketching any webs found and what they contain. This will then feed into the construction of the spaghetti web on a bank side.

Annette said: “It will be a good way to learn about spiders and feeding the birds at the same time.”