Northern lights illuminate the Pennine skies

Allendale, Northumberland The lights dance and shift, fading or intensifying, undulating in curtains of colourAs I open the back door, the path shows up in a rectangle of light, the gravel sparkling like golden sugar. My breath shows in pale mists that billow and dissipate in the air. The owls that called repeatedly at dusk are now silent, hunting for voles across the frozen haugh. There’s the sharp smell of cold, and the river seems much louder than it does by day.
Here, in the frost holl