The good Beltane weather has been and gone. The TV forecast last night showed Britain blotted out by horrid green digital cloud. I don't know why it was green, but the effect was suitably repulsive. Mokie says there's gonna be a lunar eclipse tonight, but I don't suppose we'll get to see it.

Going off at a bit of a tangent, there was a report the other night about this new brand of street lighting that throws light down and not up. No more light pollution- that would be grand. We live on the edge of a huge conurbation and the sky- on all but the clearest of nights- is orange.

When I was a kid I found the night sky scary. The thought of all those stars being so far away just freaked me out and after gazing at them for the shortest time I had to hurry back indoors to be safe.

I was fascinated by those antique celestial globes which show the constellations as a writhing mass of mythological figures- men and women and snakes and other livestock. I think that played into my fear. The stars looked like points of light but actually they were these Beings- and one of them was a dragon and he was huge.