Misty spider morning

We were up at dawn on Saturday to watch spider webs billowing in the breeze.

The misty garden was full of them. One lavender bush was like an apartment block with dozens of beautiful, fully occupied webs stretching between flower stems.

The spectacular web pictured above was strung delicately in a japanese maple just outside our back door.  It had one long anchor line hanging from the bottom, attached to a little grey pebble from the gravel path. The pebble had been lifted by the web and hung suspended about an inch from the ground, spinning constantly. So cool.

And with the garden spiders comes autumn. The rain sounds good on the skylights at night and I am amazed to find *both* children in school full-time, happy and occupied. Meanwhile I attempting to get back into this thing called “me”. Ah, and what was that again? I draw? I make stuff? I write?

Amelia once said to me “Mum, I would like to be an artist when I grow up, just like you.”
How sweet – and how touching! How good to be a role model! After I gushed and carried on and told her how nice that was to hear, she followed it up with an entirely innocent; “so I can do nothing, just like you.“

I ranted and raved about motherhood, and roles made by choice and circumstance and feminist ideals but, in truth, I do feel like things have been on hold for a very, very long time. So now that the house is empty and quiet and it’s time to step up and get busy.

Distractions this week, other than the obvious Facebook and Twitter:

– Goodreads – catalogue your reading list, your book shelf, get recommendations, find friends and creep their reading lists. My friends are all impressively and intimidatingly well-read.

– The flickr photostream of illustrator and cartoonist Tom Gauld.

– The Lonely Polygamist: A Novel by Brady Udall. Not actually a distraction, per se, as it’s for bookclub and also reading is an entirely legit pastime for any aspiring writer (just ask Stephen King). The Lonely Polygamist is great fun and doesn’t feel like hard work in the least. I’m highly recommending it thus far, although I see from my goodreads status bar, I am only 11% of the way through, so perhaps not the best judge.