The first web of autumn....

In contrast to yesterday, I had a choice of images today. I woke reasonably early, though not quite early enough to see the sun rise, and decided to take the dogs out before it got too hot. After last night's heavy rain, the world sparkled in the low sunshine, a myriad of sparkling diamonds, especially on the grasses and reeds.

I was particularly surprised to see that many of the plants were festooned with dew-covered spiders' webs. I usually associate this sight with the start of September or even October, when the garden spiders are fully developed. Indeed, my very first blip was a bejewelled web in our garden, taken on 4th October 2010. So as it was such an unusual sight for the time of year ,I had to blip a backlit web - beautiful in its simplicity.

As expected, the day became very hot. I spent much of it entering data, but I snatched a few shots of our Shoo-fly plant , not living up to its name, as it was being visited by many hoverflies. I photographed two apparently having a quick kiss which I've put in my Blipfolio.

Alex, Ben and I then had a pleasant half hour sitting in the garden, with our feet in the paddling pool, eating ice-creams. Real summer decadence!! While we were sitting there we watched the sky become darker and darker, and heard the first rumble of distant thunder.

By the time the storms reached us their friend had arrived and all three teenagers stood in the paddling pool throughout the torrential rain (over 2cm in less than half-an-hour) - and I was mad enough to rush outside and photograph them, while holding a white tray over my camera to keep it dry! I'm not sure which of us was most mad!