Magical

The Northern Lights!

African thunderstorms. Such lightening and the sky lit up fluorescent purple.

A silent fall of snow on the first Christmas Eve night after my beloved father's death.

The actual birth of my grandchildren.

Thank you, whitewave. We learn something every day.

A dog thing. Vets don't know what causes it, but it is almost ways fatal.
Notices in Forest warning dog owners.

Alabama Rot? What's that?

40 years ago my son was born, 1976 at the end of the heatwave. I stood with him in my arms at an open window of the maternity hospital and watched a lightening storm in the distance the sky was amazing and at 4am the Royal Mail train went past on its way to deliver the mail. Then as the sun came up the rain and thunder started too, I've never forgotten that night.

I keep looking out for noctilucent clouds Hilda but to no avail. Are they always in the east?

I adore the New Forest. We used to stay near Fordingbridge every year over the August Bank holiday.
Alabama rot has put paid to that.

Three summers ago, and in the middle of a heatwave, we were staying in a pub/hotel near Yeovil. I woke up at 0430 and went outside. Dawn was just breaking over the Somerset levels. It was already hot and a mist had formed over the lake. I stood and watched as the sun rose and the mist gradually disappeared. It was lovely. I wasn't the only early riser in the garden that morning either, there was an old man sitting at a picnic table drinking beer from a can and by the look of the pile of empties on the table he had been up all night.

Standing on poachers point overlooking Ambaselli National Park in Kenya. It's the only high point for many miles.

We watched a swift rain shower approach across the plain and then it turned into a rainbow that appeared to arc over our heads.

I've never seen both ends of a rainbow so closely . It felt like you reach out and touch the rainbow, as if your hands would be coloured by the refracted light.

The pictures we have don't do it justice :-)

Watching the sun set over the Victoria falls in Zambia, with the sight and sound of "the-smoke-that-thunders" and the sky turning all shades of pink, orange and red, was absolutely magical. I close my eyes and think of that evening if I'm feeling a bit down!

Printmiss what a lovely idea seagulls on a thermal in the moonlight.

I shall add noctilucent to my vocabulary Hilda fab word which describes what a I saw.

*DanniRae a life changing illness makes you reassess a busy life and successful career. Sadly it can often take an episode like that to make us MAKE time to stand and stare in this busy busy world with all its demands.

What a lovely word noctilucent. I've never seen it before. Thank you Hildaj

I get up and go to work in the middle of the night. At this time of year, when the sun is below the horizon, but making the sky bright in the east there are often noctilucent clouds. They seem to shimmer in the sky, they are magical.

Having struggled up a hill in the Peak District, to sit at the top in bright sunshine with the whole of the bottom of the valley hidden by a blanket of mist. It made you feel you were much higher, above the clouds, almost. And sitting on our balcony in Singapore fifty years ago and watching a huge tropical storm approaching across the Straits, with lightening flashing behind enormous anvil clouds. And when it hit us, boy, was it scary!

I love standing in moonlight making a moon shadow.

Nankate if you can catch a glimpse of the seagulls gliding on a thermal in the silver moonlight, it is enchanting.

Thanks Izabella I love that poem. Those last two lines "A poor life this, if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare" - so very true but in this busy world............?

Our river often looks like a living silvery thread with clear skies and a full moon and that is totally magical. Two nights ago the millpond was enveloped in the most wonderful mist just above water level. Last night an owl swooped so close to my face it made my step falter.

I always think of the william Davies poem:

What is this life, if, full of care
Wehave no time to stand and stare
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance
And watch her feet, how they can dance
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this, if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare

I remember as a student on the deck of an old ferry, going to the island from Athens. The sun rose.slowly on the horizon of the sea. Colour building on colour until it became a whole in. the sky. Spectacular