On being relaxed and comfortable in Robbo

Summer Clouds -
viewed from Anni's porch.
People who know me well, will realised that I am anything but "relaxed and comfortable" at present. The fight against the Aquifer is too "all consuming" for that.

But I can admire Anni's ability to stay calm, when all around are losing their heads.


I have just done a "Google" search, and realised that I was more-or-less quoting Kipling's poem "IF". It is worth reading. In fact it ought be obligatory reading.

*****

But back to Anni's front verandah, on Saturday afternoon.

Firstly, there were these beautiful pale pink Oriental Liliums in flower in her front garden.

They have a delicious scent as well.






Then, we saw this gorgeous butter-ball of a Spider. It really was this colour, and rounded shape. She was just forming up her web, when I saw her. There is a single dark strand running back behind the Spider (otherwise she would be unbalanced, and her web would not be as "taut" as it is).

Click on the photo to enlarge it, and see the web, and the text I have added to the image.

You can see her forming the sticky catching web, but it is only just being shaped up. Presumably, later in the afternoon, it would have been fully formed.

This little butter-ball of a Spider is getting on with her life. She might be preparing to catch and kill insects, but that is what she is programmed to do. As such, I regard that as a morally neutral activity.

In these troubled times, I cannot resist asking why humans, who, in contrast with this Spider, do not need to catch and kill, behave so inhumanely to their fellows?

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

*****

Dear female readers, please overlook the sexist language, but Kipling was a child of his times.