The Light of a Distant Fire

...and the last tab read. Crap, it's 0400 again and light outside. Sunrise is at 0432 and the horizon is clear - so clear I can see a Sun Pillar. Bollocks, the camera's full. Better get a new set of batteries too. The bank of clouds way off to the NorthEast horizon and the hills on the other side of the river delayed visual sunrise for 20 minutes, and I was beginning to think the cirrus clouds were going to reduce Sol's disc to a diffuse glow. I had taken a closeup of a spider on its web with the sunrise in the background... and then.

On the hill, just to the right of the pillar in the above picture, an instantaneous small point of light appeared on the right limb. At first I wondered what the light was - it was bizzare, as if someone had an incredibly powerful spotlight across the river. I had the camera in my hands behind my back and fumbled, trying to turn it on whilst keeping my eyes on the growing point of light. It was startlingly obvious that this was the moment where Sol would emerge from behind the hills. Seeing specks of sunlight through depressions on the Moon's limb during a total eclipse came to mind. Throughout, I couldn't get Burning Bridges out of my head, due to the video from the Sons of Pioneers tour.

04:51:37 GTM DST. A few seconds after emerging from behind the hills.

I was quite excited that I had witnessed the rising of Sol, more so because I may very well have been the only person observing it this morning. Taxi drivers paying more attention to the road than the sky particularly annoy me. For a few minutes after fully emerging you could look at the solar disc without being permanently blinded, although I ended up with bleached receptors in the centre of my vision, as with last time, for 15 minutes.

Anyway, where are the chapettes in this town?

Then I fell asleep at 0600 when it became a strain to keep my head from rolling off my shoulders.

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