The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

I have a rule that I write for an hour each morning before doing anything else. No distractions or procrastinating allowed. No pottering, no early breakfasting and definitely no Internet browsing or checking emails. I used to be able to spend this hour indoors, but the kids are now at an age where it is easier to escape to a shed at the end of the garden.

Standing and taking in the dawn for a few moments this morning it felt like a rule that was in need of a little breaking. I stood there in my standard uniform for this time of day: pyjamas, Ugg boots, thermal jumper and hat. Quarter of an hour must have passed. Naughty, naughty boy! Get in that shed at once!

Apologies all blog readers. Firstly the last post wasn’t really fair. The picture quality isn’t good enough to be able to tell that the grasses have been blown in the direction that the picture is being taken or that the distant horizon is bright. The photo was taken a few weeks ago in Wensleydale looking ENE towards the dawn light.

Secondly, I’ve been out of touch longer than hoped for as I’ve been travelling in some nearby, but strangely wild places recently with limited options for internet access, including deepest darkest Brittany and a hut on some rocks in the Channel Islands called Les Ecrehou . Back soon and normal service will resume hopefully!

A fresh peach of a dawn this morning. The contrails in the first photo have a clear southeast track to them which is not unexpected as there’s lots of civilisation to the distant southeast of Sussex and relatively little in other distant directions.

Dawn light always feels very different to sunset light. I use the word feel deliberately, because the actual light and colour differences are often subtle. Even if they look similar our normal sleep patterns and lifestyles, combined with the temperature differences mean that we rarely look at a sunset and dawn with similar sensations. If we are in a familiar place we know where to expect morning or evening light, but even mid-Atlantic robbed of lots of other stimuli they feel massively different, one heralding an end to cold and the other respite from sweltering.

But do they actually look different? Yes. The familiar pinks, oranges…

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