I was devastated when I missed the spectacular aurora a couple of years ago. We were travelling to Scotland at the time, but had stopped off overnight near Manchester, and from our hotel just south of a motorway the sky was just a yellow glow of light pollution. The next day on Skye (and on Mastodon) it was all anyone was talking about. I’m delighted to say that last night I finally saw the northern lights for the first time in my life, aged 42, from the balcony of our flat in the far south west of England.