When the Lights Go Out

Last night I found myself walking my puppy along the lysløype (floodlit track) in the woods near our house.

I was out much earlier than normal after getting the kids to bed early.

It was a chilly but beautiful and clear sky above us.

I checked my watch and knew that we were only a few minutes away from a magical experience.

Write on time as always at 10:02 p.m. the lights in the woods switch off.

We were plunged into momentary darkness. Within seconds the silhouettes of the trees around us were visible.

Tilting my head backwards and my gaze up to the night sky, hundreds of stars, if not more, started to come out. The longer I looked the more became visible.

I stood there in awe just looking up at the universe.

It took me back to my childhood memories of sleeping out under the stars with my cousins during my summer holidays in Northern France.

My Fremch grandfather owned a house with a good amount of land right by the sea in Normandy.

Every summer all of his grandkids would meet up and stay there for two to three weeks whilst our parents either worked or took a well deserved break from us.

We would often be three or four cousins huddled up in a double sleeping bag staring up at the stars. It was such a remote little village that there was next to no light pollution.

We used to have competitions to see who could spot the most shooting stars in the sky. I am sure that some of my cousins were very loose with their description of shooting stars as I very rarely sore as many as one particular cousin.

I don’t hold it against him and my son is named after him.

Back to last night and after five minutes of staring into the night sky it was time to head home.

I turned to head back down the path and that is when I saw it….. A shooting star!

1-0 to me!

Doggies: Aya, Baileys, Ellie and Haraka