Last night the conditions felt right for a walk in the woods. There were plenty of clouds, but large gaps suggested that the stars would not hide for long periods. The moon would not be getting up until later and the breeze was too light to be of help. I needed the stars.
I set off as the last light from the sun faded in the southwest. Cassiopeia and Cygnus neatly sketched out north for me, even when Polaris was well hidden. When moving south I used Jupiter and Aquila.
Four hours later I returned, having spent nearly all of it alone, in beech woodland and without using a torch. Moving at times with my left hand extended out to fend off inquisitive lower branches, I covered about six miles; this was no race.
In every woodland walk there are times when you feel the forest is on your side…
I went for a short walk in the dark last night. The clouds were firing past the moon and jupiter giving a very eery feel as the light levels rose and fell dramatically and the wind tore threw the branches. This rushed picture shows a blurred moon, seen through some branches. The moon and Jupiter were very close to each other last night, near conjunction and a blurred Jupiter can hopefully just be seen below it and to the left, also mired in cloud. One of the branches is close to touching it.
We had some old friends staying this weekend and decided to laugh in the general direction of the forecasts and go for a walk in the woods. It was dry for half an hour, but then the clouds moving over our heads, and visible in the gaps between the near-bare trees, changed their scudding direction by almost ninety degrees. This was the starting gun for a predicted and yet sudden change in our weather fortunes. We turned at our halfway point, the 18th century 