Walking Ghyll, 24 September

Getting to the part of the year where walking Ghyll happens in the dark. I put on my headtorch and my hat and my orange jacket but it turns out to be remarkably temperate. Cool but not cold, a full moon shining through a thin layer of high, patchy cloud. Stars are showing through the gaps.It's quiet in the field. The air is still, so all of the audio clutter of suburban living comes out to the fore: a dog barking, a hollow noise like a machine coming down a metal pipe, some buzzing vehicle racing up the front street. Either a small motorbike or a stolen car with the tailpipe sheared off by some offroad shenanigans.When we were up at Haughtongreen for the work party, I woke up in the middle of the night for a wee and found that the whole world had gone totally still. No wind, no rain, no trees bustling against themselves. Not a cloud in the sky, the Milky Way wheeling. I'd never been outside in the total silence like that before.