New Moon

They say that it's always darkest before the dawn.
Particularly true, I believe, for Burton and Marston.  They drew the lowest playing cards this evening, and are doomed to the all-night New Moon Watch.
For those unfamiliar with our lunar rituals, let me explain.  New Moon Watch lasts from the last glimmer of the old moon to the first glimpse of the new.  Or, if our Moon Calendar says there should be definitely something to see if it were not for the weather, we bring them in.  We get enough cases of hypothermia round the place that we don't want to go being reckless.
Burton and Marston have to stand on the Watching Step, looking up.  Since the Step is in the middle of the Big Meadow, they're quite a way from the house.  And, frankly, quite a way from anywhere.  It can get rather scary out there.  And since at least one Watcher must remain at all times, it can get even more scary if your companion slips off to answer a call of nature.  In November, Edith went off leaving Boromir all on his own, but just headed off to bed.  He was screaming about the demons of the woods when we found him in the morning, wearing nothing but a pair of flip-flops and a hi-viz vest.  Not a pretty sight.
What makes it worse tonight is that the haze is making it impossible to see anything in the sky, even if there were a new moon to glimpse, and also that it's absolutely - as my niece would say when she's getting dahn wiv da Pearlies Massiv - "taters".  Burton and Drayton are facing the coldest spiritual experience since the  Jesus Army organised a Make Way march round Vladivostok, and without the benefits of their warming buzz of self-righteousness.
Still, the wood-burning stove glows with the apple wood so kindly cleaved by Grandfather William, Tranter Reuben is entertaining us with a selection of West Country ballads on the fiddle, and we're feeling traditionally spiritual ourselves, in a "landed gentry of the 19th century" kind of way.  Life is good.  As long as you're playing with marked cards.