It’s still quite warm

It’s still quite warm and we’ve been able to do some work outside. John has started digging out a space for the big tanks we bought to collect the rainwater from the roof to supplement the tank we already have. The new ones hold 1,000 litres each. We need to line all three tanks up in a row at the same level and connect them all together so that the water only needs to enter the first thank but all the tanks fill up. We should get Filippo with his digger to do it, but John seems to be quite enjoying the challenge. Alessio helped him when we got back on Saturday from what turned out to be an ill-fated chess tournament (his team came seventh out of nine), and he dissipated some of his chess rage via hard physical labour.

While all that was going on I raked the bottom half of Cassie’s paddock, which we’ve separated off, preparatory to sowing grass. It was a nice warm evening and felt quite springlike. Yesterday I sowed the grass seed while Cass looked on in astonishment from the other side of the fence (I had the seed in her feed bucket and she was incensed that I was apparently just chucking her feed away without even consulting her). Today it’s raining lightly which is just perfect.

Had two consecutive clear nights at the weekend without a moon, and I finally saw the comet I’ve been trying to locate for ages. It’s comet Lulin, recently discovered (2007), very faint but you can see it through binoculars. It’s a greyish greenish fuzzy smudge, powering along out there, heading past us and out of our solar system. It won’t come back, if at all, for another thousand years. On Friday night I located it just near the star called Regulus in the constellation of Leo, and the next night it had moved visibly 3cm or so up the sky (a long way in astronomical terms!). It’s an amazing thing and it blows my mind to see it. It’s moving really fast and away from Earth now, so it won’t be visible through binoculars for much longer, and the moon’s light will start to affect it shortly as well. So I might never see it again.