It’s that time of year when we can expect visitors...hanging about our homes, scuttling along the skirting boards whilst we are trying to stay nonchalant. But what if we were to see instead, what they do outside in the meadows, surrounded by the chirping of unseen crickets?
Warning: this is not a horror movie
My morning walks are never the same at this time of year. Ripening berries and soft mists signal the shift from late summer to the start of autumn. With the hot weather, the mist is quickly dissolved by the sun to reveal glistening webs and structures woven overnight by countless spiders. Most of the occupants are long gone, although there are some garden spiders still at work, but it’s not them I am so interested in. It’s what they leave behind.
This is a little video called Crickets & Cobwebs - an appreciation of the weaving skills I have encountered, so you don’t have to!
Consider all the bugs they have caught, small flying or crawling things that would find their way inside our homes if the spiders hadn’t got there first. Hurrah for spiders!
Next week I’ll be sharing what I found in a little 19th century house in West Kensington in London, that includes a beautiful two-story tiled Arab Hall called a qa’a.