Day 256

Wednesday 01 December

It was a full moon last night. I woke around 3am and watched out from the bathroom window on to the back garden and the orchard beyond. The moon reflecting the light from the invisible sun on to our little patch of land.

It seems pretty obvious that we notice the moon more in the winter time. We simply see more of it than in the lighter and longer daylight hours the rest of the year. And so, along with the seasonal mystery and unease already present, so the moon casts an eerie floodlight down on to a skeletal, threadbare landscape.

This year of craziness has taken and given. Throughout it I have learned so much more about the things that are right there in front of me. Things that I thought I knew enough about already. So, I knew the moon went through stages; new moon, waxing (as it ‘grew’), full moon, then waning (as it ‘reduced’).

But I didn’t know that the stages just before and just after a full moon are known as the gibbous stages. Tonight, the day after being full, is called the waning gibbous moon, which lasts about a week. There are usually twelve full moons in a year, occasionally thirteen, one per calendar month.

And each one, depending which month it falls, have been given names. The November full moon is the Frost Moon for obvious reasons. The most familiar is the Harvest Moon, the one nearest to the autumn equinox, which usually falls in September.