September 21 - Day 131 - We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery. H. G. Wells

Before you start thinking you’ve missed yesterday’s blog - there wasn’t one. This can be explained by an 8 hour car journey back from Pembroke - a long story which I will not bore you with - other than to say an hour sat in the car on the new Severn Bridge without moving, although very impressive in terms of the scenery and engineering, is not what I’d like to have been doing on a Monday morning!

And also - I know I covered spiders last week but I couldn’t resist including this new picture where I managed to catch a better picture of the spider as well as the web in the dew. Given that H G Wells, author of War of the Worlds and other texts was born on this day in 1866 H G Wells, it also seemed a good time to include the title quote and one from his short story, the 'Valley of the Spiders, ‘a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full foot it measured from leg to leg, and its body was half a man's hand’, which is enough to stop anyone scared of them from stepping out of the house.

I think the spider in the picture is a Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus) sometimes called a cross spider, diadem spider, orangie, or crowned orb weaver. They use their third pair of legs for assisting in the spinning of orb webs and moving around them but on the ground, the kegs have little use. The spiders are said to eat their webs, made from silk, each night along with the insects stuck to them.

I suppose I just keep being amazed about the sights I have been able to see from the bike that I just wouldn’t have noticed. I must have driven past fields of webs for years and never noticed them or able to stop to take pictures. What better way, therefore, to end today’s blog than with something else attributed to H G Wells, ‘Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.’