Spiderwork

Christmas Eve and bright haze all day. The recession has been pale and lovely. Now the sun has almost set and at the edge of the fen, across an empty paddock, spiders have spun silk from every blade of grass. The ground seems covered with angel hair, the glass fibre that was used to adorn Christmas trees when I was a child. In the way of the fens the mist is rising from the low places to meet the sun. Teasles and bullrushes are backlit along the old fences. The work of the spiders in the paddock is like thousands of tiny strings of lights. The effect is magical.