Aurora borealis

I didn’t want to write yet another blog post about this wonderful church so soon, but as this incredible event happened on the night of 10th May, I thought it was better to keep it in the right month.

Like most people, seeing the aurora borealis has been on my wish list forever. At first I simply didn’t have the time. Then, there were places that just came higher up on that wish list. Finally, having so many assorted pets meant that I haven’t taken a traditional holiday for over thirty years. It became a dream that would never come true.

Then I began to hear that we are approaching the peak of the current solar cycle and photographs started appearing online. Even so, those in the UK were almost all taken up in Scotland and I believed there would be no chance for us living near the south-east coast. But I was wrong. There were a couple of big events last year that could be seen all over the country, but sadly the south was covered in blankets of cloud. I spent hours looking for likely gaps, even willing to drive up to three hours in any direction, but there was no chance. I gave up again. (Although I remained in a very useful aurora forecast group on Facebook, just in case).

It was probably on 9th May that we got the heads-up for a potential big event. I charged my batteries, formatted my cards and watched several online weather forecasts with my fingers crossed. Finally, on the afternoon of 10th May we got the alert to go. I already had my location planned, but there was a fair amount of cloud forecast for that area. I had a back-up location, but there were doubts about the car park and I knew there was much more light pollution. So we headed to the 12th-century church of St Thomas a Becket on Romney Marsh. In the end, the forecast was wrong and we an almost clear sky until we left at about half past midnight.