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 ...

The Scotland Diaries: Part Two - Ashes to Ashes

Just a quick one, to bring the year to its close:

There was a death in the family recently - no excuse for not writing but it's the only one you're gonna get so make the most of it - and it has Been Decided that next year we will return the Dear Departed's remains to Scotland.

So should you be passing Loch Awe some darkening evening (see above) and you notice several furtive-lookin' blokes and a now-ash-blonde dame apparently shaking a huge pepper mill out over the silver waters ... you'll know it's just the family releasing Mum back into the wild where she belongs.

Knowing her sense of humour she'll get into all our eyes and up our noses and refuse point blank to be ejected over the loch because she never could stand deep water.  She'll blow away on the wind, up the mountains and into the free far north where her ashes will dissipate over the Beloved Country with those of my father and grandfather and all who have gone before.

Requiescat in pace

The Scotland Diaries: Part One - Staggered Stars

I've just been reminded that I've not written on here for some time. I confess to having forgotten all about you.  However since you have not been waiting with either held or bated breath you can't have missed me much, so I shall simply dust you off, check your pulse and respirations are still in order - and continue.

In mid-September I drove north from my beloved Exmoor to the equally beloved Other Country, from which my family originates.  Eleven hours - get out your atlas - took me to a near-deserted loch below Oban. Alone I was, since The Others although invited, declined to accompany me - but not lonely. 

Odd how one can feel lonely in a crowd and not on the edge of a wild, glacier-designed landscape with only curlews, owls, bats, red squirrels and huge red deer for company. 

The sunshine on the loch made dancing flashing mirrors of every movement of the water and the reflected light from the sky turned the sea turqoise. The air was so pure that mosses and lichens capped the granite stone walls to a depth of nearly two inches.  And my cabin was so close to the water that I could hear the gentle ebbing and flowing of the tide lapping on the shore. 

That evening as dusk fell, I walked the two miles to The Big House, along the narrow lochside lane, often stopping to examine trees, tiny flowers, still-purple heather and many rocks and stones both in and out of the water.  The geological history of Scotland ('Land of Mountain and Flood') is fascinating ... but not my story to tell. 

The red deer were already in rut and in the fading light I watched two stags sizing one another up for possession of a single hind who was waiting on the rocky foreshore. As it happened it was no contest - I think the younger stag saw the magnificent antlered  head of the older (sporting brow, bey, trey and I think four atop) and realised he was outclassed.

I watched the Elder trot off with the hind and a couple of bats swooped low, no doubt feasting on the late summer midges still around.  The light did a cinematic fade-out and my eyes adjusted to it in gradual and natural relaxation.

As one sense lost its supremacy, another took over. Night sounds serenaded me back to the cabin - was that still curlews?  Owls, Tawny and Little from their calls, mourned across the evening, rushes of wind shivered through the leaves of birch, oaks and pines, small mammal rustlings twitched the undergrowth.

Seemingly from everywhere - and dominant over all the other noises - the eerie primeval roaring of red stags came at me: from the other side of the loch, from the lane behind, from somewhere high up on the hillside above. 

Oh, glorious night!

I stayed out for a long, long time.  The heavens were unbelievable - just a dome of stars stretching to eternity in every direction. The Milky Way was clear and constellations such as Orion very easy to spot, with the Pleiades up beyond and oh, how I wished I'd brought my 'Observer's Book' with me to identify all the others!  Once enchanted by such a night sky, one puts up with the inevitable sore neck - but at last I had to go indoors.  I did consider setting a camp bed out there on the shore and just lying on my back to stare up all night at the beauty of a trillion miles of starstruck forever ...

Oh, glorious, glorious night!

Flea Free

No, we're not giving away free fleas.

This is to announce that we are now a Flea Free household.

If that can ever be true where there are HunterKillerCats.

End of Announcement