Hope in the evening

A diadem spider was poised in the centre of its web attached to gorse and brambles beside the path when we walked to the coast this evening. As I knelt to take photographs it darted into the corner to spin out or reel in the filaments. I was pleased to find I had captured it here with all 7 visible legs engaged in a complicated ravelling process so that it seems suspended in a cat's cradle of tensile strands. On the right, droplets of sticky, insect-trapping substance adhere to the silk.

Only yesterday I came across a French superstition I'd not heard before:

Araignée du matin, chagrin;
araignée du midi, ennui;
araignée du tantôt, cadeau;
araignée du soir, espoir.

Now I find there's a British version too but it's not so elegantly put:

A spider in the morning is a sign of sorrow;
A spider at noon brings worry for tomorrow;
A spider in the afternoon is a sign of a gift;
But a spider in the evening will all hopes lift.

For the spider, evening is the time to surrender hope of any more captures and instead to consume the day's web as a final meal before turning in for the night, waking to weave another in the morning.


Edit: I'm sorry that so many Scottish hopes have been dashed. As a Welsh-born British person I have mixed feelings about the result.