Regrettably, Ms Playchute endured much the worse of it. She was up all through the night while I merely complained about the disruption to my sleeping pattern. My experience started on Tuesday but, while feeling nauseous I never actually vomited; I merely enjoyed the delightful symptoms associated with explosive diarrhoea and therefore was spared dealing with the dilemma which is frequently presented to sufferers \u2013 do I sit or do I kneel? Sometimes, apparently, one has to do both. Not very pleasant and, while the outpourings from both ends concluded in about 36 hours, both she and I (but especially she) have been somewhat less than our usual fun-filled, care-free selves for most of the week.<\/p>\n
Another sign of Spring of which I have been reminded in the week is the arrival of the piercing shaft of sunlight which drills through my eyelids at about 7.00 in the morning. As the sun marches northwards it reaches that point on the horizon where there exists a direct line between the sun as it peeks above the horizon, one of our bedroom windows (which has no curtain or blind) and my sleeping eyes through which it drills vigorously causing, as they say, a somewhat rude awakening. Often, of course, the weather is so lousy in the UK at this time of year, that it\u2019s not an issue. This week, on a couple of the non-foggy mornings however, it has been very abrupt indeed! Of course, as Spring progresses the sun moves further to the northeast and bursts through another of our unblinded bedroom windows onto Penelope\u2019s slumbering eyes. The only real difference is that her awakening arrives at about 4.30 each morning instead of the marginally more respectable time of 7.00ish.<\/p>\n
And speaking of things celestial, I ran across a video on the Guardian web site of the Northern Lights shot from the International Space Station which I thought was pretty cool. You can find it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n And finally, those of you with a half decent memory will remember that I wrote about Stephen Gough, the Naked Rambler some years ago (February 2009, in fact. If you need a quick reminder you can grab one here<\/a>). This is the chap who, for some reason, wanted to walk from Land\u2019s End to John O\u2019Groats naked which he did on a couple of occasions spending some time skirmishing with local law enforcement agencies along the way.<\/p>\n![\"Venus](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/jupiter_small.jpg?resize=350%2C525\" "\\"Venus")
<\/a>One evening last week when I was feeling marginally better than awful, I had another attempt at capturing the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter. I don\u2019t think my efforts are going to win any prizes but I was somewhat more successful than on the previous occasion I tried. Click the image for a larger version in which you might actually be able to see both planets!<\/p>\n