A great rainbow watching day today. Especially down in Dodd Narrows. While I was preparing supper there was one full bow that was almost so bright it hurt the eyes. Then I looked to the right, there was a fainter but definite arc about eight or nine degrees away from it. A double bow.

Mostly at this point we switch off. Double rainbow, isn’t that pretty? Yet this afternoon I took time out to look more closely and discovered for myself the dusky but distinct bands of colour between the two bow shapes, faint and very smokey but most definitely real. A pity I haven’t a camera good enough to record them.

I know a rainbow is only a trick of angle and diffraction through falling rain, but to me there is something magical in these arcs of disassembled light. They tell us that no matter who we are or what we do there is always wonder to lift hearts from the sameness of the day to day. A Te Deum against tedium.

To notice these vague coloured shadows was something of a minor revelation to me, and just to check that my mind wasn’t playing tricks, while we were having supper, I asked Angie what she could see. She gave me an odd look, concentrated for a few moments and then the light of revelation shone in her eyes. “I’d never noticed that before.” She said.
“Well that makes two of us.” I replied. “Shadows between rainbows, who would have thought?”

Up until then we’d both been a bit crabby and not our usual cheerful selves, but that simple act of observation lifted the mood of the dinner table. Amazing what a simple trick of the light can do for the human soul.