Moon watching

I watched the moon from our the dining table, looking out over the valley. Clouds moved across it, partially obscuring it, and it cast bright light behind and beneath them as the sky slowly darkened through rich blue to black. I took smartphone photos from the balcony upstairs, and stood for a long time watching the light change as the clouds shifted. It was beautiful, despite the cold, and a few hours later, when J was in bed and I should have been, I remembered that this was the best night to view the Lyrid meteor shower and couldn't resist. It was bitterly cold and the sky, though clear, was rather too hazy and the moonlight too bright. It was perfectly still though, the wind had dropped and only one car passed. I listened to the owls for a while - I think there were three - then thought I saw a little streak from the corner of one eye. I persevered, looking north with my back to the moon, and over the next fifteen minutes or so saw at least a dozen meteors. They were rather faint streaks, but there was also one brighter, quite turquoise one which seemed to flash and burn. I was too cold to stay outside in my dressing gown for long and needed to sleep before J woke again, but I was so glad I'd taken the time to look.