Moon

The phases of the Moon viewed looking southward from the Northern Hemisphere (Orion8, Wikimedia Commons)

Earlier this month, Sue in Suffolk mentioned on her blog that there are two full moons in October this year. The first was on the first: the Harvest Moon. I like her posts about country ways and the natural world. She even provides a link to a moon calendar in her sidebar.

Two or three days later, we were taking Mrs. D.’s new Fitbit out for an evening walk. She commented how white and bright the moon looked but that it did not seem quite full. I was able to respond that the full moon had been on the first of the month – “the Harvest Moon,” I said knowledgeably – and that there would be two full moons in October this year.

There ensued a discussion about how you could tell whether a moon was new or old, whether a J-shaped moon came before the full one and a C-shape after, or whether it was the other way round. It turns out to be JC in the Northern Hemisphere, which seems easy enough to remember.

How on earth have I got this far without knowing that?

Diaries always used to contain little symbols for the phases of the moon: ☽ ○ ☾ and ● for first quarter, full, last quarter and new (assuming your browser renders these symbols correctly). There are none in my present diary (I still use a paper one), nor on the kitchen calendar. A diary from 2000 does not have them either. I had to look back to one of my father’s from 1986. 

Needless to say, I never paid them much attention. At one time it would have been one of the most important things you needed to be aware of for planning work outside. 

 

Traffic Cam

I have been watching the post (or the mail if you call it that) in trepidation.

Recently, we took daughter back to university: you can’t do art studio and ceramics stuff at a distance online. So she has to chance it with our hurdy gurdy covid policy – let all the students catch it otherwise we’ll have to bail out the universities, and the private landlords will go bust and we can’t upset them because they vote for us and donate money, and we’ll just have to cross our fingers that not too many students develop serious chronic health conditions.

Anyway, that’s a digression. On the way back, after leaving the motorway, you have to run the gauntlet of speed cameras. I know where they are and have learnt to be careful, but you know how it is: you have been going along at 70 and have to re-adjust to slower roads, and you are tired after five hours driving and are nearly home, and perhaps you relax too much and don’t pay enough attention. I got through most of the cameras unscathed but was left wondering about the really nasty one which is obscured by bushes just after the speed limit changes from 40 to 30. It is one of those high-tech, bi-directional Truvelo D-CAMs with no flash and hardly any road markings. I was watching out but when I thought about it again it was half a mile behind and I had crept back above 30 with no memory of passing the camera or checking the speed.

I hate the things. They caught us on Lendal Bridge in York during the first week it was restricted to buses and taxis only. There were few signs or road markings. By the time we realised where we were going there was no alternative but to proceed across. A similar thing happened in Newcastle. We found ourselves unable to turn round with a choice of either entering a private car park or going through a ‘bus gate’. At least they provide nice photographs of you driving where you shouldn’t. And at least Newcastle let us off with a first-time warning, and York council had to refund the penalty after the Lendal Bridge restrictions were challenged and judged unlawful.

    

Remember how it used to be? There was a time near Selby in the blue mini (see blog header), in the days before servo-assisted anti-lock brakes, when, foot-down, I came round a bend to see a parked car on my side of the road and a bus coming towards me. I scraped past with a deep scratch along the side. There wasn’t a mark on the parked car but the man who had been peeing behind it had a dripping wet trouser leg. It gave new meaning to the phrase “making a run for it”.

In a later car, when I lived in north-east Scotland, I would do the 750-mile round trip home several times a year. In those days you could dash along for miles at ninety without much fear of offending the police. I once managed the one-way trip, with one rest stop and one petrol stop, in less than six hours. The smooth slate-grey colour of my exhaust pipe was the envy of every motor sport fan. On other occasions, when there was no traffic on the three miles of gradual descent on the motorway between Sheffield and Doncaster, that little car could do a hundred.

Still later, in 2001, I had a new Golf funded by travel expenses. Once it was well run-in I wondered how fast it could go but chickened out at a hundred and twenty (193 km/h) on the M1 south of Sheffield. Nowadays, the cameras would have you straight away, followed by a court appearance, a heavy fine and disqualification. Do it too many times and you would go to prison.

I only did that kind of thing a few times and would not do it at all now. These days, there is no alternative but to observe the limits. That’s a good thing. I know of too many tragedies to think otherwise. And I do try to keep to the limits all the time, we both do, particularly since someone close had to go on a special course after getting caught by a camera.

The university trip was nearly three weeks ago. You should be informed of camera transgressions within fourteen days. The post lady has just walked by. Nothing for us. I think I’m safe for now. But, it’s probably only a matter of time.