I have a funny relationship with spiders. I do have a bit of a phobia about them, particularly the big hairy-legged ones called George who strut across the room like they own the place, but I am getting better.

I can now get quite close to them, and frequently do when I decide to take macro photos of them. I can put up with having a spider in my peripheral vision, climbing up the blinds next to the desk while I am sitting here, but no way am I going to touch the bugger.

It looks like the slug season has moved on to the spider season now, and there are webs everywhere. I have been getting really impressed by a couple of the ones in our garden who manage to sling a web between two places two or three metres apart, and then do it all again the next day when it gets destroyed.

Not destroyed by me. I think its the cat. I know its not very house-proud of me but when I find that a spider has spun a big web from a light fitting, for example, I don’t get rid of it if it is still occupied. Instead I keep checking to see how many flies have been caught.

We are likely to have a lot of guests round next month for Jayne’s birthday party, and I reckon all the spider webs will have to go then, but its a shame. Some of these webs are so intricate but get built so quickly.

I was looking at a huge web on the shed, belonging to a 1cm spider. I was trying to work out how big a web could be spun by a spider the size of a cat and came to the conclusion that if spiders the size of cats were common they would be ruling the world by now.