Most mornings, at about 5.30am, I creak out of bed, throw on my dressing gown, grab a torch, pop my gumboots on and scuff along our longish driveway to retrieve the newspaper from whichever shrub the paper delivery person has thrown it on.
It's usually ultra quiet, except for the snuffling of the dog, but the other day I had a feeling that we weren't alone so I stopped and shone my torch on to the outside wall of the car shed.
There must have been a hundred spiders silently going about the industry of creating or repairing webs (some of which looked as if they'd been there for decades, only the dust and papery fly wings holding them together) or eating an unfortunate victim, or just sitting there concentrating on the important business of surviving.
It made me think about some of the quiet achievers in our industry, those who simply work on creating the best products they can without being distracted by all the competition.
Here are some of them ...
