Spider season

 

I can tell that September is well underway now. The spiders have arrived. This absolute beauty has slung its web between my bike shed and front garden wall. Known as a garden or cross spider, it's very common in the UK, Araneus diadematus if you're feeling fancy. Monday passed in a haze of discombobulation, there was admin to be done, sensible phone calls to be attended to, using my best talking to professionals voice. Combined with the increasingly dire warnings about the capability of AI to destroy us all, my brain did not feel in a comfortable and creative state. You wait ages for one existential threat to humanity, and then they all come at once. Hard to be whimsical in the circumstances.

In search of distraction and novelty yesterday, I set off on my bike to explore the new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus (TQEC), a brand new offshoot of the University of Bristol. The new campus behind Temple Meads railway station is stretching out into an area that when I first came to Bristol thirty years ago was either derelict buildings or light industrial units. Ten years ago I was working in a communications role in East Bristol and remember seeing the plans for this shiny new building, and sharing news about it in a community magazine I edited. Much was made at the time about the university reaching out into the community, connecting more with local residents. So it would have felt rude to turn down the invitation. Now the cranes and the diggers have rolled away for the final time, and this huge edifice of glass and concrete is complete. First impressions: so many hard surfaces, straight lines and sharp angles. But maybe this is what is needed to do business, no room for softness here.

I found the trees in the main plaza comforting, some money has been spent bringing in large mature specimens, an instant copse dotted with benches. The other planting around the building looks promising too, lots of pollinator friendly plants, and I spotted some fruit trees. However, the inside of the building made me feel very small, craning my neck in a vast atrium, lots of exposed pipes and ducts. It felt a bit like being inside a machine, and I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about that. The atrium and a communal area marked in yellow on each floor are accessible to the general public, so being inveterately nosy (I prefer the word curious), I set off to explore. A bright yellow staircase winds up the centre of the building, and it was here that I had a serendipitous encounter with John Rea who runs the Between the Lines poetry open mic at Bristol Folk House and we stood and chatted on the stairs about writing and parenting teenagers. John is a warm and supportive host, and that chance meeting made me more determined to stand up and read at the next event. The outing may not have been exactly what I needed to soothe my jangled nerves that day, but I was glad I had obeyed my curiosity.

Nerves were definitely soothed today by a successful first day back in the woods at Forest School. I met the child I will be working with this year and enjoyed being part of a team again. Over the weekend I read The Violin Maker's Secret by Evie Woods. Not my usual sort of thing, but it was given to me by a friend's mum who I have often shared books with in the past. I was touched that she thought of me, and I enjoyed a good story and escapist read. Thanks Betty!

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