Hello darkness my old friend

I BEGAN nightwalking out of necessity. The congenial village pub that served Wadworth’s 6X to the underage was not, alas, situated in my village, so required a three-mile perambulation home at closing time. My path to my earth was along the downstream bank of the River Wye.

One midnight, I witnessed barn owls, ghostly raptorial orbs hunting over December-frosted water meadows. In the heat of a summer night aroused with the aroma of shining elderflowers, Daubenton’s bats vortexed around my head, so close the cooling breath of their leather wings was on my face. Often there was the sheer romance of moonlight on water. And so, a teenage prerequisite became a