Gaudete St Fursday

Dateline Thursday 08:31 16 Jan 2025.
Lá Fhéile Fursa!

Sprang out of bed and yomped up the hill in the twilight to witness Sunrise on St Fursey's Day - which is becoming quite the tradition. Crystal clear the night before with Venus & Saturn coming towards conjunction in the SW; Jupiter near Aldebaran between Orion and the Pleiades; and Mars suspended below Pollux in Gemini. But sunrise? that was, this year, a dull grey sombre event:

Note to self: it really only takes 30 minutes from sofa to altar, and there's no advantage to setting off, like my father, in good time. That just involves hunkering down in the lee of the stone (the only local shelter) waiting for 08:31. There's nowhere to sit without getting a wet seat; although the almost vertical stone on the left does provide a sort of misericord support. Bring a feedsack? I slipped and sat down in the wet heather anyway on the way down.

20 minutes later and 170m lower down, there was a struggle between sun and lowering cloud behind The Thorn [last year]:

And now, 90 minutes too late, it's a bright sunny day in the yard. But can't complain: knees still up for it.