There are several things I learned last weekend – perhaps the most significant of which is that the Met Office is not to be trusted.

Now, granted, this is a lesson which I should already been familiar with.

I have lost count of the times it informs me the sun will shine in the summer and the snow will fall in the winter and both fail to make an appearance.

But when a family member flagged up the potential of a bit of Northern Lights action in the skies last Friday night, I went to the, apparently trusted, weather people. With all their high-tech gadgetry they’d be able to give me a pretty clear answer, I assumed.

I was wrong.

There was, a tweet from the esteemed meteorologists told me, “a good chance of seeing the Aurora across the northern half of the UK, and perhaps further south with long exposure photography”.

So I went to sleep on Friday safe in the knowledge that without the necessary camera gear and only reliant on a “perhaps” I would not be missing anything.

Saturday morning I was woken by an image my son sent me from a friend in Herne Bay. Full of vibrant swathes of colour it was, unmistakeably, the Aurora Borealis.

I was not best pleased. I only live a few minutes down the coast.

So having read of the wonderful sights I’d slept through and discovered that my iPhone actually has that all-important long exposure option (who knew?), I vowed on Saturday night that we would witness this heavenly display.

Pausing the Eurovision Song Contest just prior to the jury votes, we strolled down to a dark bit of nearby beach and looked to the skies.

What I can confirm is it was a lovely clear night and there were plenty of other folk out there collectively keeping their fingers crossed. You couldn’t actually see them, on account of it being pitch black, but you could hear them.

I whipped the iPhone out, worked out the long exposure option and took some splendid photographs. None of which, sadly, included the Northern Lights.

We trudged back home, shouted at the outcome of Eurovision votes, and then made one final early hours jaunt to see if we could spot the lights.

To cut a long story short, we didn’t. But I do now know how to take a rather splendid nighttime image on my phone. And, of course, know never to believe a word the Met Office says.