No custard danish this morning. “We sold the last ones half an hour ago,” the boy behind the counter told me when I went in shockingly late, at about 7:00 am. So instead I picked up a couple of raspberry tarts, not tarts as I know them but more like shallow, not too sweet muffins studded with fruit. Another delicious thing we probably won’t be able to get in San Francisco.

***

I entered the Botanic Gardens through a wrought iron gate. Curving paved paths, trees and shrubs with labels on them, lots of shade. There was a lovely pond with ducks that had pointed rather than blunt beaks. Every now and then I’d hear another bird. I’m not sure what it was, whether it was the Ibis or one of the black and white crows, but it sounded like something between the mew of a siamese cat and the noise a toddler makes as it spits out something that tastes bad. Nearby were signs warning me not to feed the birds because they might get aggressive, which, considering the beaks on the Ibis, stalking moodily around in the grass, seemed like good advice.

I heard a faint chittering sound above me as was walking through an especially tropical looking area, very shady, lots of palms. When I looked up I saw what at first I thought were large brown leather bags hanging in the trees high over my head. Then one of the brown bags stretched its wings. The trees were festooned with bats, very large, beautiful bats, their fur thick and reddish where a dapple of sun hit them. I watched one fly between the trees, soaring overhead, less like the flapping of a bat than a small, sleek animal caught in mid-leap.

As fascinated as I was, it seemed unwise to be just standing beneath all these creatures so I began walking again, slowly because I kept looking up at that shady conclave up in the treetops. They were bedding down for the day. There were always a few who were restless, nudging each other, stretching their wings, or sailing from one tree to another, and there were so many. It took me about a minute to get out from under them.