New Moon

This was last night's new moon, seen from our back gate across the stubble of the recently harvested barley. Ritually, I nodded to it seven times to bring me a lunar month's good luck, relieved that I hadn't first seen it through glass, which removes the luck.

I was taught these and a whole collection of other weird rituals by my deeply-religious Scots mother. I have no idea where she got them from - though I suspect her mother - but, while I have lost the faith she fought so hard to inculcate in me, I haven't shaken off the superstitions.

Worse, I have collected some additional ones as I have moved through life. So, at some point in our stay on Ardnamurchan, I was told that one should ensure that the witches were kept at bay by planting a rowan at each entry to one's property, advice which I followed both when we built our new house in Scotland and since we have been here in Suffolk.

I lingered for a few minutes as the reds grew fiercer, watching a bat criss-cross the sky as it worked for insects and listening to its squeaks muted against the deep rumble of the traffic along the A14.