Time & Space

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We step out of the bright lights and warmth of the kitchen to stand in the cool autumn night. It's so dark that it's difficult to see the movement of my hand in front of my face.

We walk around the side of the cottage, our eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the absence of light. Beyond the garden, there are only fields and trees.

We stand for a while. The dog sniffs and snorts around the garden, and in the distance there is the sound of foxes geckering, hoots from owls and the eerie sound of deer barking.

It's a clear night without a moon, but the blanket of stars above us is bright. After a short while, the darkness steps back and shadows and shapes begin to emerge.

I tilt my head towards the heavens and consider that I am peering into a far-distant past. The light from some of the stars and galaxies above began its journey towards me millions or even billions of years ago. Some of these ancient stars may have already died; the light I now see from them is just an echo of what once was.

The constellations are bright and clearly defined in the night sky, and I use the celestial patterns to identify some of our brightest stars. After being briefly distracted by the satellites that glide silently across the expanse of starlight, I eventually find Vega.

Even Vega's light is old; it has taken 25 years to reach me. I wonder at the fact that the light from this distant sun began its journey just after the millennium, way back in 2001.

The dog pulls on her lead and it breaks the moment. It's time to go back in.

We step back into the cottage, the dark temporarily extinguished, forgotten behind us. The kettle is boiling noisily, there's an advert playing brashly on the TV, and our world is once again lit by electric light.

Sidenote: If you look up at a clear night sky and locate Polaris (the North Star), the light reaching your eyes left the star approximately 430 years ago. To put that into context, it was 1596, the year Sir Francis Drake died aboard his flagship, Defiance.