a wee story of howwood startrails

I set out last night to take startrail pictures near Howwood. When I got to the train station I realised I had forgotten my phone, but to go back and get it would have meant waiting another hour for a train. My initial frustrations were that I wouldn't be able to tweet or listen to music while standing around a field for a hour. however, as I made my way to the field it became obvious that it was an even more horrendous plight. Without my phone, I didn't have a map. A bit inconvient, but i was confident i could find the place eventually. Without my phone, no-one knew where I was. If was to fall down a hole in the inky darkness, no-one would find my body for weeks. Without my phone, i didn't have a clock, so wouldn't know when to go back to the train station. Most of all though, without my phone I didn't have a torch. A useful implement when walking about the countryside in the dead of night.

I managed to walk down the pavementless country roads without getting killed, and reached the field. It was really very muddy. I had considered taking Molly, my sister's dog, but it was just as well i hadn't - she'd have been a mudball in seconds. I eked my way along trying to avoid the boggiest bits, and getting slightly freaked out by a wind turbine and a flock of noctural sheep. Now I was really glad i hadn't taken Molly. Can you imagine? The sheep would have chased her up hill and down dale. I eventually saw the tower I was heading for, and bravely shooed the sheep away, and started the startrail process. I tried to read my e-reader by the moonlight, but it just couldn't be done. So i started playing around with my spare camera. I was leaning on the window sill of the tower to take a photo in the other direction. The wall of the tower started ... flickering. Knowing there was no-one nearby I was confused. I looked up and between me and the moon was a large white bird, silently hovering over me. It was so dark I couldn't make it out clearly, but i think it was an owl. Either that or the archangel Gabriel, but probably a bird. It hovered a bit closer (a few feet) and I thought i would get a closer look and then realised it was probably coming to peck out my beautiful eyes to protect its young. So i made an agressive stance and it flew away. Carried away by a moonlight shadow.

As I made my way back to my camera bag, something pierced the bottom of my boot and my foot. Looking down, i couldn't see what it was, so i can only imagine it was a nail from a bit of old fence or something. In the dark, it's hard to tell how much pain you are in. Was that sensation pain as my lifeblood oozed out my foot, or cold as the mud oozed in? Cold and mud, or pain and blood? (forensics later revealed it was cold and mud). Just in case, I thought I had better return to civilisation so I packed up my stuff and made for home. Somehow in the hour I had been in the field it had gotten much darker and much muddier. And there were big trenches that i hadn't noticed on the way in. The gate which had seemed so obvious on the way in was lost in the murky darkness. By the time i made it to the train station i looked like a survivor of The Somme.