I'd always rather suspected that silvery moonlight was a piece of Romantic hyperbole.

I mean, it's not like I've never been in remote places in a full moon before. It's just that it was always right by the sea, which gives a whole different lighting dynamic. To be in a remote area, away from artificial light, but not near water, on the night of a full or near-full moon - this is not something I am aware of having managed before Sunday evening. If I had managed it before, I can't have been paying attention!

So - where was I on Sunday at 7pm? At Avebury stone circle, as part of a candle-lit vigil in protest at the war.

At one point during the hour-long silence, first Nick and then I went for a solitary walk about the ground near to the vigil-place. I took just one candle - at Nick's request, and mostly so that he knew where I was, and to give a little light floating in the darkness. I didn't need it to see my way: the moonlight was enough. On each of the smaller stones of the Inner Sanctuary was a candle, barely flickering in the absence of wind. Beside the road were huge stones, black, immense, numinous against a blue-silver sky. I had a sense of being in a holy place, equal to anything I've felt in church or cathedral. I don't think I've ever used the word "awe" and meant it so profoundly.

And back in the vigil itself? Perhaps thirty people to start with, coming and going in peaceful silence, dwindling in the end to only six or seven of us when the village church bell rung eight. It was so still that not one candle blew out, even the long household tapers in the middle of the circle. I stood, and then I sat. I smelled cold air, candle-flames, pipe-smokers, the perfumed candle that Nick had placed in front of him. I looked at the flames, I looked at the stars, I looked at the faces of the others there. I looked at the stones. And sometimes I closed my eyes, and saw in my mind, Iraqi children, Iraqi men, Iraqi women - human, flawed, laughing, crying, eccentric, ordinary people who are going to die over the next few weeks because of the war.

During the hour my mind flitted through meditation, prayer, thoughts of all kinds of things. In such a place it was easy to get a sense of the love of God, so I tried to extend that to myself, to those in the circle around me, and even to those who it is most difficult at this moment to feel any compassion or forgiveness for - to Bush, to Blair, to Saddam Hussein. That was difficult, and my mind is terribly undisciplined. But over the time I reasoned and prayed and watched my thoughts go by, I found myself growing tranquil, alert - even happy. I managed a few insights about myself, especially as to what I need to do to be that less fearful, more loving person I aspire to. I renewed my determination to do what I can to prevent war, and if I can't help prevent it, then just to be there, and to not forget about those who will be its victims. And I had enough of something special going on in my head, that although it was really quite cold in the clear air, and I felt that in my joints and hands, inside I felt warm. And since then I have suffered very few, if any ill-effects from sitting on the grass for so long. Surprising.

As people left the circle, they placed their candles or nightlights on a small standing stone - some with ease, some with more difficulty, dribbling wax on to the stone to enable tall candles to remain in place. When Nick and I left, we walked together, quietly and with a great sense of closeness - to the Red Lion pub. :) We sat down by a group who had been at the vigil earlier on - a stunning piece of social confidence coming from either of us, but it seemed fitting, and a lot less alarming than it might have been. We got into conversation with one man who had been at CND marches in the 60s, and told us about a friend of his who back then had been kicked out of a communist peace group for being too personally popular ("cult of personality", you see...). They did the deed while he was on a march, so he walked back to where the anarchists were, and they were nicer to him, so he became an anarchist instead. I liked that. ;)

After that group left, we were shortly joined by some Quakers - two women and two children. We chatted to them all for a while, about peace and Coldplay and folk music and things. :) We were very impressed by the children especially. They had been having what protests they could at the school, and seemed very articulate, pleasant, and confident in a relaxed and not-arrogant kind of way.

We all left together, and then Nick and I turned up towards the National Trust path towards our car. The massed candles were still burning strongly on the stone where we had left them. We walked back with no light to guide us except for the moon, and its reflections on grass and leaves. And it was, beyond any doubt, silver.