Right Place, Right Time

Once again a major Aurora event when I am on the road home after a talk.   Back in May, I had given the talk and was on the motorway.  Too much ambient light.  Nowhere to stop.  Tonight I had organised the talk but this time I was driving home from Bangor along unlit roads in remote places.  Very dark.  Plenty of places to pull over.   First I had stopped above Trawsfynydd where the light in the northern sky was quite evident but the colours were only caught in the camera - extra pic with tree silhouette.  The peak time was, later a bit after midnight, just as I was passing the lake at Talyllyn.  The aurora clearly visible to the naked eye, in many colours.   It's brighter in this picture from the lakeside (another in extras) than in to the naked eye but not very much.   Quite magical as it stretched right across the sky overhead, even though it was freezing cold out!   A once in a lifetime experience perhaps.

It's been a full on day - he says writing this after 2am having spent a lot of time standing and staring.  The men arrived at 9am to take the wall at the end of the garden down.  It came apart all too easily, justifying the decision to demolish.  After lunch I drove to Aberconwy nursery to collect the big screen for the talk and then on to Bangor to meet the speaker, down from Edinburgh and is on a short break / mini lecture tour that I set up.  We were greeted at the usual pub by a 'Kitchen Closed at 5pm for urgent cleaning' sign ... not something that fills one with confidence where kitchens are concerned.  The problem this presented was quickly solved, crossing the bridge onto Anglesey we stopped at the first pub we came to and enjoyed an excellent meal there.  As most of last month's ten attendees had sent their apologies, I had warned our guest that it could be a very small audience so it was a very pleasing to have a lot of visitors and a couple of new members turn up.  Eventually we numbered 21, the best turnout since the pandemic.  It was an excellent talk, looking at similarities and differences between plants literally from opposite sides of the world - China and Chile.

A few quieter days ahead now thankfully.