Glad you saw them, Asy 
a memory to treasure.
Aw shucks. Sometimes you've got to hate British weather. 
In this event, it was a bit of "virtue rewarded". Either that or pure dumb luck! 
When Thingummie Minor and I went for night duty at the Rescue Squad at 1800 hours, the whole area was covered in dense fog. We couldn't see 10 feet in front of us, much less the night sky.
At midnight, we walked out to the parking area of the firehouse, to see a friend to his car. Amazement to the max, no fog and a clear sky overhead. Everyone else we called on the phone still had fog.
We stared up until we all had cricks in our necks, quite astonished and delighted with the unexpected view.
Glad someone got to see it. I missed it, but am keeping a close watch on the pot plants just in case.