Kielder Dark Sky Observatory

An all-day work meeting would generally engender no feelings of joy. The venue today though was absolute magic! Starting at seven in bright sunshine, a colleague and I drove North up into Northumberland, to where the rolling acres of Kielder Forest stretch as far as the eye can see in all directions and Kielder Water glistens like a plate of silver glass in the distance. Our destination was the Observatory, perched on a hilltop which stands in the dead centre of a huge circle of sky.
A wind generator powers the building, a couple of big telescopes and a small radio wave collecting dish. We were privileged to have two of the observatory staff to tell us about the phenomenal rise in interest in dark skies over the past 10 or so years and to let us look at the sun through the shielded telescope. The entire field of vision was taken up by light except for the left hand quadrant  where a tiny row of sunspots, that have been causing the latest round of Northern Lights, meandered across the face of our star like dots of fly blow. Each were explosions as big as our Earth planet. It was a very strange feeling to see what was happening on the surface of our sun in real time (or at least only 8 minuets away from real time)
After that we all crowded inside the lecture room for presentations, information and discussion based on the premise that Recreation in the forest is the means for re-creation of the mind,  body and spirit. 
Presentations by the various forest managers of the North District described the past few, very difficult, years - dealing with the aftermath of covid, rising tree disease, recruitment freeze and massive storm damage. Picture after picture showed areas of forest decimated, with trees uprooted and trunks lying like tangled piles of bleached fish bones. Despite this, targets were being met, pathways cleared, visitor numbers were up, income was being generated and quality of visits was surveyed as excellent. 
I felt so proud to be working with such colleagues, each one dedicated on a daily basis to carrying forward a vision of how our State forests can best benefit society's well-being, protect wildlife,  strengthen environmental stability and maintain sustainable timber production.
And then, to promote our own well-being we ate picnic lunch, sitting on the decking in the sun, looking at the view, with a good breeze to keep the midges at bay.  A Perfect day.