A web like a spider's web

When I was a kid, attending Girls' Camp with my church friends, we would sing a song called Spider's Web that had a rather lovely chorus (for a camp song) that went like this:

There's a web like a spider's web

Made of silk and light and shadow,

Spun by the moon in my room at night.

It's a web made to catch a dream,

Hold it tight 'till I awaken.

As if to tell me that dreamin's alright.

Most of you know that the idea of encountering big spiders occupied my thoughts leading up to our move to Australia. And filled me with dread. Everyone I talked to who'd been to Australia, or knew someone who'd been to Australia, had at least one hair-raising story to share. It turns out that none of those people had been to, or known someone who'd been to, Perth. Apparently Perth is the one city in Australia where they don't have big spiders all over the place. So, much to my relief, we haven't yet come across any scary spiders. However...

The spider webs that you find around here are just about the creepiest things I've seen. It's like the spiders that are out there are launching some kind of psychological warfare. These are not the lovely creations that photographers like to hunt up on dewy mornings. These are sinister, fibrous messes. The kinds of webs I'd expect to see in a haunted house. And they're all over the place. I wouldn't want to see the kind of dream these things would catch.

All in all though, I'm very happy that the spider situation is not what I'd feared. The cockroaches on the other hand...