Mooncast Rainbows

A high bright moon, just over full (they call this phase waning gibbous) lit my route along the lane to the horses at 6am this morning.  The air was fresh but very moist and high overhead in the sky in front of me arched a mooncast rainbow.  I've not seen one of these for many years and it was absolutely beautiful, its arc-bands in different tones of a kind of purple rather than in definitely different colours.

Look up, if ever you're out walking in the dark of a winter's night and there's rain in the offing but the moon's full and bright behind you.  Look up, enjoy yet another of nature's free lightshows and be glad to be alive.

Something Fishy

I've just been going through some old photos and found this little gem.  He's a Lalique angel fish belonging to a friend. Isn't he just lovely?  He has a curious 'opalescence' if that's the right word and appears to change colour in different lights but I couldn't capture it on my camera.
Photographs are great inspiration for short stories ... so I'd better get on with a Fishy Tale

When I'm rich and famous I'm going to collect pretty things like this!

A Room with a View

This is the view today from my kitchen window.  I love it.

Three weeks ago all I could see was a tree-hedge the height of the remains of the offending article to the back right of the photo.

For many years, the owner of that hedge refused to have it cut down, despite my neighbour and me offering to help pay for the work. Poor Mrs A had bought her cottage for this view but and within a few years had lost it, completely in summer and partially in winter - until the Americans solved the problem. They'd bought another cottage just out of sight to the left and the 30ft wild and unruly 'hedge' was blocking their view entirely.

They set to doing The Obvious Thing: they bought the field as well.  They got a local chap and his boys to cut and lay the hedge and burn off the rubbish.  It looks a little stark now, in the dark January light but come spring, all will be well again.

Now we've all got our lovely view of the hills back!  I can see the 800 year old oak tree (it's dead, but one of its daughters is growing in its bowl) and the buzzards that land on it. I can see the deer as they pass through, the foxes going about their lives, and I can see the moon set right down into the rim of the world.

God bless America(ns)

Finding North

Finding North can be a tricky number.  To make things easier, I bought myself a compass last year - it looks like a tiny hunter watch, complete with a lid and a spring-loaded opening button and a clip-on hook.  But with a little effort, I can make north be anywhere from north-north-east to west-north-west. It's all very well having such control over the earth, but if I want to know true north ...

I go outside, away from any magnetic influences in the cottage.

It's night. From where I live the Milky Way is pretty clear and at the right time I can pick out lots of constellations, my favourite being Orion because he's so easy to spot.  Ursa Major - the Plough, the Big Dipper, the Drinking Gourd, whatever you want to call it - is opposite Orion and supposedly points north.  But is that a bit north or very north? And which part of it is the final reference point?

Out with the compass.  The little needle trembles in my hand, unsure of its reception or its future if it cocks my orienteering up yet again.  It says east is north. Frowning, I tilt it a little and the red part of the needle suddenly ungums itself and swings round several degrees.  It settles.

You sure?  That's North?  You don't want to ask the audience or anything?

No, the needle stays pointing towards Easter Farm.  To test it, I turn around and face the other way and the needle sways, wobbles and points back the way I've come.

Fine. I've found North.  I chalk a white line on the flat topstone of the wall.

In the morning, I'll get out the ladder and fix the weathervane.

Until then, navigators wanting to know which way the wind is blowing will have to lick a finger, hold it to the wind and check their own bloomin' compass ...