57 challenges are actually 62 but I've completed a few more

It was a busy Saturday and a long one, in keeping with it being the longest day. For the children, the highlight was going on the midnight ramble, one of the challenges for the year, and they were excited about it throughout the day making plans about how they would fill the hours until we went out.

Midnight ramble - we set off at just after 11.45 and as we went along the street towards the track round Martins Farm, the torches were already on with lots of excited chatter. It took a little while to convince everyone that we would get more out of the experience without the aid of the torches and by being as quiet as possible. It was about trying to immerse ourselves in the surroundings, enclosed in the darkness instead of fighting against it, trying to be aware of how our senses were compensating for the lack of sight. That was the theory and I am pleased it worked out like that.

We soon heard a fox calling to our left and the children were surprised how quickly they adjusted to low light levels. In all honesty, it was easy to pick out the path, the hedges, trees and fields. We also noted a number of artificial lights including, sadly but I imagine, necessarily, security lights. These weren't the straightforward floodlights triggered by movement but the surreptitious burning of surveilance systems, CCTV indicated by red pinpricks of light in several locations. The best bits were when we found the trees closing around us, excluding the light from the sky, the darkness more confident in examining our resolve, unused to visitations without the armour of technology.

I found I was more aware of where I was treading, the nature of the surfaces, gravel, tarmac, mud, earth, the inclines and falls.

As we crested the hill and were flanked by open fields, we turned the torches on to check for rabbits. Sure enough there were stars of eyes focused on us from near the hedgelines, a lovely sight for the children to understand how the light is reflected from eyes, furhter demonstrated by the eyes of a roe deer calmly watching us from the right until it loped away casually into the gloom.

This all followed the final round of the family quiz which we managed to win on the night and overall but it has been a tight affair and a nice weekly distraction from lockdown, especially early on. Maria and I had done our dance to Stomp by Steps beforehand, another challenge successfully completed.

I had a lovely ride to the allotment in the morning, extending the ride by going to Verwood first and to Stewarts Nursery for some carrot seed. 23 miles done in all, with a few hours of weeding, grass trimming and seed planting on the allotment with my new friend, the male blackbird which is still feeding young judging by the amount of food it was collecting and disappearing with every few minutes.