They never left - not really. But during the summer months, the sky is rarely dark enough to see more than a few pale dots scattered on a clear night. But now, as the days are getting colder and the nights longer, they are back.

It’s funny how easy it is to miss something that two years ago I wouldn’t have given a second thought.

When I first moved to Rum, the stars were one of the first things I noticed. I remember walking home in the dark, looking up and realising that the road ahead was lit not by streetlamps, but by the moon and the faint glow of the sky. On clear nights, the Milky Way stretched above my house in a way I had never seen before. Sometimes, the northern lights would appear, dancing above the hills that towered over the village. It was enough to wonder just how I had somehow ended up living somewhere where this was just part of the night.

Their return is comforting and vaguely nostalgic. Last year, I spent a lot of time with the stars as I fed and rocked my newborn son every hour through the night. Back then, the nights seemed endless and I wondered how many other mothers and fathers were looking up at the same sky at the same time.........

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