I can't help it, I'm an owl

If I had to give a perfect example of a night, I'd give this one. Night time in late August/early September, with a full moon and a clear sky, with the occasional wisp of cloud, or the silvery puffy sort.

It is the only time of year when it is totally still. In spring and summer, everything is alive and noisy, the nights are so long that nothing ever really sleeps: even the daisies only catnap. In winter, it is dead, and the wind never seems to stop, ripping the trees to pieces and forcing the waves as far up the shingle as they can go.

But in the dip between summer and autumn, there is nothing to do. There is a pause, the moment before sinking into winter sleep. I love sitting on the front steps, listening to the wait.The waves stop and hover: the cows are quiet because of the new coolness in the air, and there is not a sound except for the odd curlew. Noisy little sods, curlews.

They took away the lightship a few years ago. I miss it. The foghorn went too. For years I would wake up in the middle of the night, to the sound of the horn booming through my room. the red light would rotate over each wall before slipping out the window again. I knew some people who hated it for being disruptive, but it was a good sea-god keeping the pass through the rocks open. When that lightship went, I felt like a beloved friend had gone away.

I don't actually know what they've replaced it with. What keeps the boats safe now? A bloody iPhone, probably.

I used to love walking home from the village in the dark. Four miles with the moon beside the road, silence except for the tap-tap-tap of my shoes and the occasional animal-rustle.

There's not enough time for darkness and aloneness these days. I don't think I like it. Sometimes it's good when you can't see much, because if you look at something for too long, you lose the entirety of it. You need to look away, glance back, do the same again. Extend the excersise, and you have night and day.

Time to go back into the garden =]