September Twilight.

This evening’s twilight was typical of what we often get in September, and with which I can’t say I’m particularly comfortable. There’s a harshness about the light, a quarrelsome look about the western sky, a chill in the air to which we haven’t yet become accustomed, and they fade quickly. In thinking about the quality of the light, however, I was served a bonus: I finally solved a twenty-year-old mystery.

Back in the early nineties I was living up in Northumberland, and I was surprised one night at about 1am to see that the northern sky was very bright. That surprised me because even in June, which it was, you expect the first light to appear in the eastern sky a couple of hours later than that. Tonight I worked it out. I'm sure it's all to do with axis tilt, light spill, and the reflective quality of Arctic ice.

The only point of note about the walk was that some of the boys up the lane paid me great attention as I walked past. Graham didn’t; he was too busily engaged in having a play fight with one of his pals. And he was doing so normally, head to head. At no time did he pick up a stick and hit his opponent with it. I felt truly honoured.