Outside lies magic, and zebra spiders!

While I was away, I finished reading 'Outside Lies Magic'. While the initial chapter had excited me, the middle chapters were merely interesting (although I think I lost something in being British as it is an American book.) However, I was out running this morning and the fact that I hardly ran while away and then have tried to make up for lost time over the weekend meant that my legs were not lovin' it today. My faster, fitter partner continued with our planned session while I slowed to an easy jog. Just as we split, I noticed the most beautiful Victorian Almshouses. I have run past these before and never seen them. This reminded me of 'Outside Lies Magic' and so I set off at a leisurely stroll to explore. I found, hidden behind a high corrugated iron fence, what looked like a travellers community; an empty warehouse with one car parked outside and pot plants in the front window; I wondered what park Park Road and New Park Road had replaced and why some roads still had telegraph poles; and I smiled at the house builder's sign with a painting by his son aged 3 in the corner. It was fun!

'Discovering bits and pieces of peculiar, idiosyncratic importance in ordinary
metropolitan landscape scrapes away the deep veneer of programmed learning that
overlies and smothers the self-directed learning of childhood ... and enables
the explorer to navigate according to landmarks and inklings and constellations
wholly personal.'

As we were having a cup of tea in the garden yesterday, my friend Joya, my eldest son and I were delighted to see a zebra spider scuttling across the table. I didn't know it was a zebra spider but my son recognised it at once and dashed off to get 'Garden Wildlife of Britain and Europe' to find out more. For a while we watched it as it jumped over the gaps in the table until it learned that it could reach and, despite our cheering and encouragement, it completely gave up jumping. In an effort to make it perform its entertaining trick again, I gently tapped the table in front of it. It then jumped straight onto my finger! I did not react like a calm, collected naturalist but I embarrassed myself by squealing jumping back and I dropped it, (although once we'd finished laughing at my antics, we found it on the chair and continued to watch.) I am still impressed as I consider this tiny creature both at its intelligence, demonstrated by its learned behaviour, and its considerable eyesight. I don't know what it thought my finger was, but it quite clearly saw me and decided to jump on me! It was only little, but I had the distinct sense of contact with another sentient being.