Anigmatic

I'm still struggling with post-viral malaise, and couldn't find the strength and willpower to go out and about today. Luckily the garden provided me with a few nice inverts, of which this female Nigma walckenaeri was one. I've put a few other photos on my Facebook page, if you'd like to see them.

I was leaning towards posting her anyway, because it's Arachtober and I'm fond of these tiny spiders (whose name I can always conjure up simply by remembering that it's an [a]nigma); and also - unusually - because I'm quite pleased with the photo. What swung it though, was that on this evening's Autumnwatch (starting at 38m 45s) there was an excellent piece about Nigma walckenaeri, at the end of which Chris Packham said that he'd never seen one. I yield to no-one in my admiration for Chris Packham, and there's literally nothing I think I could teach him about wildlife, but if he cared to come to the Shire and walk around my garden with me I'm pretty confident I could find him a green leaf web spider within about ten minutes.

After my tiny garden safari I retired to my study, and because I was still sad and grumpy about the state of my health, I thought I might as well have a go at my tax return. Counter-intuitive possibly, but the opacity of certain financial institutions' end-of-year statements sent me into such a towering rage that within an hour I'd not only banged in the tax return, but also filed a mountain of paper that's been reproducing around my desk for several months now. If I'm still furious tomorrow, I might even do some dusting.

This is my final reminder of the month to the macro-maniacs among you that today is Tiny Tuesday - so if you've photographed a small something at close quarters, why not tag it TT387, and enter this week's challenge? I'll look at all the submissions and choose my favourites on Thursday (if I haven't blown a gasket by then).