Hermetic Warriors in the Country,

After the success of last year’s Perseids viewing expedition, we bounced back prepared – with jackets – but we failed to see enough.

The evening began with a banana loaf and tea, last year, we had juice. The banana loaf was courtesy of a James Martin recipe, I was most ungracious in my acceptance of a slice. I described it as having the texture of a pencil eraser and I proceeded to let the others in the room poke at it. I also questioned the tea, it tasted of oranges. The refreshments were accompanied by Law & Order. It was the one where the woman had slapped her baby and had to face a dilemma: end its suffering by switching off the life support machine and face a murder charge or keep it suffering and be convicted of child abuse. I marginally preferred Jurassic Park (last year's pre-expedition show), at least, there’s no ambiguity where tyrannosaurus rex is involved.

We headed out to our lookout point in a layby of a darkened road. Like Sean had said, the clouds were rolling in. The clouds not only obscured the sky but prevented the level of darkness needed by reflecting errant light from the surroundings. We saw around 15 meteors; given the level of cloud, they had to be really bright in order to be seen.

My performance at the meteor shower wasn’t exactly laudable. I became distracted by a light. The light was brighter than all the other stars; it didn’t seem like a satellite nor a aeroplane waiting to land. It seemed to move closer and slightly waver in its course. I decided the best action to take would be to drive closer and try to end up underneath it. Betty and I drove on but failed to come to a conclusion. We pulled over to see a few more meteors before heading back to civilisation.

Upon arriving back, I caught a spider and put it outdoors.