I drew that bat picture ages ago. It was a present for a friend. Wonder if he still has it?Must draw another one someday.
Before anything else I’m going to mention the gig at the Lexington this coming Sunday, 2nd September, where Rude Mechanicals will be performing along with David Cronenberg’s Wife and Venetian Blonde. Should be a good night. The Lexington is just a short walk up the hill from Kings Cross, or a roll down the hill from Angel (London). Starts at 8. I have spent the last week preparing delinquencies for you at this event, monsters of all seven worlds, music for dancing and cavorting, exquisite mysteries and rare spices. Well maybe not the spices, though if you’d like some hair from the legs of a satyr I have some on offer.
If you are reading this from the other side of the world I suppose it is rather unlikely that you’ll make it to the gig. Instead dream of rare, bizarre, and beautiful thing on Sunday night.
So that’s that off my chest. Back to the bats. The Library of Obscure Wonders held its full Moon event last weekend and it was a bat walk. It wasn’t quite on the full moon because on that day it was pouring down, so we went the next day, but the moon was still looking full to me.
Unfortunately I had a bad seizure that day and was feeling really grotty. Had to cancel badge making with Vyyy earlier in the day but was determined to make the bats. One cannot cancel a bat walk in a cemetery at full moon!
I arranged to turn up later than the others. Mat very kindly escorted me there taking care of the bat detectors I’d borrowed from Olly (the bat expert). Cos had told everyone I wasn’t feeling very well. When I got there Vyvy and Nathan seemed to be organising things, which was great. They had a sheet describing the different types of bat we were likely to see there. We were to go to the centre of the cemetery at 8pm, where there is a clear view of the sky. It is then that the bats come out. So we took off into the woods.
I was feeling very fragile and strange. It felt like I was floating through and the wood was very magical. The trees were talking to me and there were lots of elf-like creatures between the trees. This was a very pleasant hallucination that made me happy, I do like the hallucinations I get in woods, they tend to have an intense but homely feeling about them, but also too fragile to maintain, such things often result in a bad headache or further seizures. I thought “I need a drink”.
Alcohol is an interesting thing with my condition, too much of it will bring on a cluster of seizures the following day, but one or two drinks when I’m feeing strange like this will bring me back down to the ground. And so it did.
We set our picnic up in a quiet clear spot between woodstump seats. There was a lot of food and drink. There were eight of us there which I think is a good number for something like this. Mat had brought a flask of Jack Daniels and Lemonade which I sipped from slowly whilst he flirted with Sharen.
The bats came out as predicted. Tiny little things. Our bat detecting machines played beautiful high pitched noises as the winged creatures full above our heads against the night sky, and because my brain wasn’t 100% back to normal yet the bats were talking to me in Cockney rhyming slang. I didn’t mention this to anyone else.
So that was our trip to visit the bats in Tower Hamlets Cemetry. I think if the weather looks like it might be good next full moon we might hold another bat walk, maybe in Hampstead Heath, I’m told they fly over the lakes there catching insects.
In the meantime there is much strutting and cavorting to be done at the gig this Sunday. Come.