Funny thing about public lavs and shower blocks, they always seem to have an abundance of crane flies (daddy long legs) and spiders lurking in the shadows.
As a child, I was never happy seeing these things, and any need to pee would go out of the window.
Here on the Marina, creepy crawlies in the public buildings seem to be very few and far between, but I was curious at something I didn’t recognise on the floor by one of the sinks one afternoon.
When it moved, I thought at first it was a grasshopper.
But when I got closer, I realised it was something else, a cricket, something I had actually never seen before.
For years, I had thought they were one and the same.
I’m not going to give a blow by blow account of their differences (anyone interested can look it up as I would have done), but it was an encounter I hadn’t expected, and in its way, intriguing I suppose for someone like me.
At school, my nickname had been Mother Nature.
I could never work out whether it was a compliment or an insult/put down, but knowing the girl who instigated it, I would say the latter.
I have always appreciated the simplest beauty in Nature, fields of colour, leafy trees, birds, butterflies, etc, but not to the extent of knowing the ins and outs of every single thing, or at least not taking a serious interest until much later in my life.
Looking at google images for crickets and grasshoppers, there are some cute little cartoons and also some pretty gruesome close ups.
I can see now where the horror special effects team get their ideas.
The most original and imaginative to date has to be The Queen in the Alien films.
The intricate detail and grotesque beauty is simply awesome (imho).
The Predator films also showed imagination at the time, but opening faces’ has become a trait of several films since, such as Blade 2 and 3, and the Resident Evil offerings, and is, to be honest, a bit ‘old hat’ now.
I did so like the weaponry in the Predator movies though!
Somehow, if I discovered one of these monsters in the toilet block, it would not be my urge to pee I’d have to worry about!
pensitivity101 