Not for the squeamish (apart from the eft)

Spiders get a sympathetic hearing here, as useful predators of less pleasant creatures, but I have to admit that it is alarming to watch them in lethal action. We discovered this the other day while cutting back a shrub in which a large Garden Spider had spun its beautiful web.

The spider was in the process of trussing up an unfortunate crane fly which had blundered into the trap and was rapidly vanishing in a cocoon of sticky silk. Nearby fluttering caught our eye, and the spider's: it was another crane fly - perhaps the first one's mate - and within seconds, it was a prisoner too.

There is little point in interfering in this grisly process which takes place all the time, all over the UK. Beatrix Potterland, it is not. But the story has a happy ending. On another shrub, these two crane flies were busy making sure that their species will continue.

By coincidence, there was a magnificent spider's web on the car's wing mirror this morning, so strong that it survived a round trip to Kidlington. No prey in it, however; such effort for so little reward.

Nature continues to bring us fresh surprises. Our gardening turned up this delicate wasp's nest below; and we found an eft - or immature newt - on the patio. The name is a fascinating piece of etymology: the Anglo Saxons called newts 'efts' which over the centuries changed for unknown reasons into 'ewts'. Fed up with trying to say 'an newt', the pragmatic inhabitants of our island changed the word again to 'newt'.  Try 'an ewt' and 'a newt' and I think you'll sympathise.