The northern lights

We’ve been enjoying the most amazing weather these last few days, with cold but bright days, remarkable sunrises and sunsets, and the strongest aurora borealis (northern lights) show that we’ve ever seen from this part of the island last night.

It’s been sunny enough that I started clearing the polycrub from its dead winter foliage ready for top dressing with fresh compost in preparation for seed planting.

We still have purple sprouting broccoli, rocket, red kale, cavalo Nero kale, spring onions, parsley, coriander and tatsoi growing happily in there.

And I’ve started sowing this years seeds.

Those huge windows on the south side of the house are worth their weight in gold at this time of the year, and with the solar gain boosting internal house temperatures into the mid twenties (centigrade) it’s created perfect conditions for germination.

I’ve sowed chillies, tomatoes, kale, beans, mixed lettuces, aubergines, cucumbers, dill and coriander. I only meant to start a few but got a bit carried away. I’m sure that we’ll find a place for them all eventually 😊

Then there was the aurora borealis last night. We normally have the aurora watch app on to alert us if there’s likely to be a strong occurrence, but last night we were busy, so it was only when neighbours started texting us that we realised we were missing something special.

Here in the south of the island we rarely see anything other than a faint glow on the northern horizon. But last night was exceptional.

The best viewpoint was the upstairs bathroom which had a north facing window and which was high enough to allow us to see past the steep hill to the north of the croft that would normally block the low evening sky. The camera had no charge, of course, so it was phone camera only.

Husband still managed to capture some of the dancing lights. Remarkable.

This evening is predicted to be active again, so we will be ready. In the meantime I’ve been enjoying the gentler and less dramatic winter evening light as the sun sets.