I was sitting in the chair under the hut awning. We were both admiring the garden, but what grabbed my attention wasn’t really the garden it was the spider webs.
I have no idea how many times I’ve said in my blog that I don’t like spiders; I am, in fact, arachnophobic. I’m afraid of them. But it appears that I am not afraid of all spiders, only big ones, especially if they are coming towards me. I also don’t like seeing pictures of spiders in magazines or papers. If there is a picture, I have to turn it over. If having turned it over, it is just face down, then I have to turn another page, so that I’m not touching the picture, because I can’t bear the thought of my hands being on the picture. ‘I know this is utterly ridiculous, but I tell you just so you know how ludicrous this is.
Because it appears that I am not afraid of all spiders, only big ones. Around a centimetre is about my limit. larger – definitely not. smaller- probably OK.
OK, having made myself look silly, one thing I can say is that there is no doubt that they are fascinating creatures. Note least of that fascination is their web building abiliities.
The frustration today came from my attempts to take a picture of the web built by one particular little beastie – it was on the web, and probably about 4 millimetres across, so well within the bounds of acceptable repulsiveness. This little chap was building a web, the main strand of which stretched between the bamboo rod on the right of the header picture to a bamboo rod hidden behind the burgundy flower, a distance of about 18 inches (45 Centimetres). Also, this was 4 – 5 feet above the ground. As much as I don’t like spiders, you can’t help admiring their skills and determination when it comes to web building. In fact, if you look at the green bowl hanging from the hut awning, you can see the web strand. It isn’t much to look at in the photograph, but thinking about the effort the spider had to put into it really makes it quite remarkable.
Not an issue with the kit, I think what might have helped is a dark background. I think I might have one somewhere. I need to find it, and then work out a way of hanging it.
Bills Posts 