let sleeping dogs lie

Unusually, I wasn't bivvying alone last night...

My foot is slowly improving, but I didn't want to go too far so opted instead to sleep in the garden. That meant that D and Jess could join me. We went out after sunset and saw a huge orange almost-full moon behind the trees on the southern horizon.

When we got into our sleeping bags, Jess lay down between us and amazingly, she stayed there all night. During a bivvy, I always wake up several times and this is part of the magic - watching the sky change colour, the pale stars moving across the sky, hearing the aspen tree whisper in the breeze, and the first birds begin to sing at half past four. Feeling the heavy dew on my bivvy bag and Jess's breath next to my face.

At about half past seven, when I took this photo, it was already getting too warm to lie in the sun, so I took Jess down to the river for her swim. Sadly, more litter had appeared in the past 24 hours - juice bottles, crisp packets, a pair of swimming trunks, a used BBQ and (bizarrely) a plastic sledge. I took home what I could and Joanna kindly put the rest in her car when she drove past later on. (She also kindly brought me a cake :-) and we picked some raspberries which were still in the shade).