14 August 2007,

Sunday was a beautiful warm, lazy day. We worked outside assembling a table we bought for our new terrace three years ago and then wandered off to look at a clearance sale of oriental rugs. We do like them so. Then we heard an item of news on the radio about shooting stars – the Perseid meteor shower in fact, so, as the other half was watching the football, I went out on to the new terrace. Rapidly I decided that I could not take the neck ache, so dragged a sunbed across and luxuriated in the soft night.

We are in a quiet area; although there is a fairly busy local road nearby, the French do not believe in scattering light unnecessarily over the countryside, so I was able to watch a glorious multitoned navy sky, resembling a deep, winter sea.

I am a stargazing virgin; although I know one or two basic constellations and do recognise The Milky Way, I had not realised how many aeroplanes fly over us at night, nor had I realised how rapidly the appearance of the sky changed. It was spectacularly clear at first, then patches of pearly cloud appeared, within ten minutes covering half the sky. This swirled and cleared fairly quickly.

I did not then know in which direction to look, nor at what time was the peak, so was lucky to see about 10 over a period of about an hour and a half. I was surprised to see them shooting apparently horizontally, not apparently dropping to the ground, and so silently – obvious maybe, but I somehow expected a whoosh!

Late to bed, it was with a feeling of elation.