Happiness is ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night's sunset. Nothing overly-special about it, except that it crept up on me when I had my back turned. I'd had a busy afternoon fitting a new water-butt and, just when I'd decided to call it a day, a little weed waved at me from one of the flower beds. Before I knew it I was on my hands and knees with only a chirping blackbird to keep me company, and I'd been weeding for over an hour before our church bell chimed at six o'clock. It was a wonderful moment. Six o'clock and still sunny. Spring is on the way and I couldn't have been happier. Simple pleasures, eh? 

Treasure them ..

Sun down ..

From our garden I get a great view of every sunset throughout the year. I also get a great view of a huge mast, which was added to the horizon in Spring to measure whether it's breezy enough to warrant building wind-turbines on the site. Two nights ago the sun had moved far enough over to set right behind the mast and, like a giant 'solstice' marker, I feel that we are now 'on the other side' and winter is on its way. As an interesting aside, I photographed the next night's sunset with my camera-phone (or is it a phone-camera?) and was amazed to see how much the earth has turned in just one 24 hour period. The sun set completely to the left of the mast. The blown-up quality is rubbish, but you get a good idea of how far over it has already moved.

With the clocks changing this weekend this will happen just after 6.30 in the evening. The dark nights have definitely drawn in ..    

Let there be light ..

It was all about the light last night, as we were treated to four spectacular versions of its mysterious wonder. Ok, I say 'treated', but the fourth version was a power cut - right in the middle of the bloody football!..

The evening started with the most astonishing sunset, turning the world a gorgeous pale yellow and finishing with a glorious blanket of orange and red, backed up with a superb double rainbow. That was followed by a thrilling firework display, put on as it is every year by one of our local schools..

The evening ended, as I said, with a flippin' power cut, meaning we spent a good part of the rest of the night in candlelight. The one night I've actually wanted to watch a football match on the box - Salford City v Notts County - the juice went off and I had to follow the game the old fashioned-way .. updates on Facebook!!..

Still, that short period of not having any light was the perfect way to realise how much we appreciate it..