The twilight zone

I lifted the lid of the dormant compost bin and found hanging from the inside rim a pearly teardrop of translucent silk the size of a cherry, holding in its centre a clutch of maybe two hundred eggs, just perceptible within like a ghostly yolk.
Nearby crouched a large spider on a trapeze-like web attached to the side of the bin below the egg sac.
As I watched a woodlouse fell from the raised lid and dropped on to the web. In seconds the mother spider was on to it, wrapping it a tight package of silk, her legs moving like pistons as she wound . She'll leave it hanging there for the babies. She herself does not eat while she guards her eggs and will die before they hatch.
Her much smaller mate has already vanished: if he's lucky he escaped before he too became a meal.
I recognised this spider because I've come across it before, under a drain cover. It's the European cave spider Meta menardi that lives mainly as the name suggests in caverns underground but also in other dark enclosed spaces such as shuttered buildings, tunnels, mineshafts and sewers. Here is a picture of dozens of egg sacs hanging from the roof of an abandoned wartime dugout. Imagine feeling them dangling in your face in the dark - you would probably bat them away in a panic, not realising that the delicate stalk of these gravid baubles has been found to be made of the strongest and most elastic spider silk ever tested, stretching up to 7 and a half time its length in laboratory conditions. You can read about that here (with a better image of the egg sac) and more about Meta menardi in general here including the fact that it was was awarded the title European Spider of the Year 2012. Who knew?