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Edinburgh Delights- Part 2: More Comedy & Taxidermy

Royal Mile Performers
Clearly I've been having too much fun & so have been neglecting the weekly blogging. Preparations are in full swing (hint-this is code for frantically working to get it all ready) for Helfa Gelf which starts on Friday, that's THIS FRIDAY! Before immersing myself fully in this though, I just wanted to do a brief round up of the rest of the Edinburgh jaunt.

In a programme heavily weighted towards Richard Herring (probably my favourite ever comedian, consistently funny, innovative & hard working), I went to another of his podcast recordings. This one featured Bridget Christie (who the next day deservedly won best show in the Fosters Comedy Award- the renamed Perrier for anyone in their 30s or older), Ed Byrne & a 5 min comic poem by another favourite Luke Wright. Also saw RH's solo stand up show, 'We're All Going to Die' which was enjoyable but not quite as brilliant as previous stand out shows like 'The Headmaster's Son' 'What is Love Anyway?' & 'Oh F**k I'm 40'. I've concluded that he's at his very best where there are lots of personal stories about him & his mildly eccentric family. An added delight however was the sighting of the sexy/cute one from Horrible Histories in the audience, much excitement!

Edinburgh Book Festival
Luke Wright was another highlight, a performance poet (much better than that sounds, stick with me) delivering wondrous satirical, warm & witty poems (can listen to a few on his website). On our annual family trip to see some music, the parents, brother, hubby & me took ourselves off to enjoy the Scottish music delights of The Sorries. Don't be deceived by the parody name (of The Corries to all non Scottish music fans), they are musically very talented, pick their songs with care and are exceptionally likable & entertaining. Also inspiring were Joanne Harris & Neil Gaiman in the Book Festival. Joanne Harris in particular is a fluid & fascinating speaker and I'm hugely looking forwards to reading the new novel Peaches for Monsieur le Curé.





Mabel the Mole (Before)
One day I opted to try something a bit different, a taxidermy workshop! It feels slightly odd to love making faux taxidermy & admire the real thing but not actually have given it a go so when the opportunity presented itself, I signed up. Along with four other ladies I spent a slightly surreal Sunday afternoon skinning a mole, cutting through leg bones, coaxing out it's brain with cotton buds, blow drying a mole skin with a hair drier etc etc. Beforehand I was slightly concerned as I can be very squeamish about certain things & resorted to asking myself (in my head) 'what would Leo di Vinci do?' He would be too busy being fascinated & curious to feel sick I reckoned. Thankfully, so it proved, it really is a mesmerising process & I felt quite empowered by the fact that I managed it. If Armageddon or the apocalypse do strike maybe I could manage to survive for a few hours using my newly discovered skills!



Mabel the Mole (After)
Our tutor was Samantha at Hen's Teeth Taxidermy who as well as being an excellent teacher has a beguiling workshop, light & airy and full of treasures for taxidermy loving eyes. I've mentioned her work in a previous blog post so it was fantastic to see the glorious array of fake food/ taxidermy fusions in real life. To be clear, Mabel the Mole is supposed to be flattened like this, the workshop was titled 'Rodent Toast'. If you persevered, you too could have a decorative toast rack full of flat rats & moles (definitely a talking point over breakfast). I think Mabel will look splendid mounted in a box frame and should remain safe from my taxidermy shredding cat Sootica.
Hen's Teeth Taxidermy

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