Upon first glance, you might not notice Charlotte...

...She is carefully camoflaged against the blue of the wall behind her in this photo. I'm not sure that was intentional on her part. Although I'd like to believe she spent a few months touring the homes of Australian citizens in search of the perfect colour scheme, before relocating to her favoured ocean-blue hued residence, it was probably a fluke. But Charlotte sure does LOVE her home. And now, I love Charlotte.

I wouldn't want to touch her. It's the same as you love things like electricity, and standing on the edge of endless gushing waterfalls - you appreciate them for all their vast, impressive power, but you wouldn't want to stick your finger in, or step any closer than you have to.

She's always there when I walk to work in the morning, hanging out in her home-spun hammock; right in the middle, like a happily intoxicated royal on holiday, sipping fly-flavoured cocktails and occasionally reaching out a spindly leg to flick a stray leaf off her doorstep. She takes up the entire space between the lower branch of that tree there, and the bush below. And what's really cool about Charlotte is that she's gone one step further than regular spiders in her trapping methods, by creating not one, not two, but three separate webs that all intertwine, creating a sort of spider-woman vortex that no living creature (smaller than a grain of rice) can possibly escape.

RESPECT.

My walk to work isn't complete unless I've had a glimpse of Charlotte, and I think she knows. If she had a face visible to my rubbish human eyes, she would smile as I walked past, and possibly wave with every single one of her eight legs; "HELLOOOOOO BECKY!!! MY HUMAN FRIEND!". Well, maybe seven legs - she couldn't levitate herself completely, that would just be weird.

It's a bit of a shit photo, this one below, as I don't like to get close enough to warrant obtaining the perfect shot and focal point. I'm not THAT accepting just yet. But Charlotte is growing on me. She's awesome actually. Here she is, as close as I dare to get. Bless her.