Once again I am joining the group who write a regular series based on the book A Writer’s Book of Days. Today’s topic is the time between dusk and dawn.

Our cat Sapphire likes to sit under the bushes across the street from our house in the evening. Sometime after dark I will step outside to fetch her. There are times she comes immediately when I call but other times she waits until I make eye contact. It’s a little like playing hide and seek. I enjoy strolling out in the night air like this. Even the mundane looks magical in the moonlight filtering through the tree branches. The streetlights are dim and I like it that way. About the only sounds are insects and a distant far-off hum of traffic. I am the only person about, although sometimes I am surprised by a jogger appearing out of nowhere or a pair of headlights barrelling down the street.

The garden can be interesting at this time of day. White flowers can almost be luminescent in the night and the cool night air brings to the nose the fragrance of magnolias blooming down the street. Scott Ogden has devoted an entire book The Moonlit Garden to the subject of gardens at night.

Much as I would like to linger I am not a night person. I get tired early and almost always am in bed by 10 pm, usually with a mystery novel or a magazine. Tricia stays up later watching the evening news, a practice I gave up years ago. By the time I wake in the morning the sun will be coming up and it will be dawn.