Last week we in the UK, along with several northern hemisphere countries, were ‘lucky’ enough to witness a partial solar eclipse. Northern Spain, Northern Russia, Greenland and Iceland even ‘luckier’ when becoming party to a full sun blockage.
Bereft of special filtered sunglasses, making it safe to look directly at this infrequent astronomical event, I didn’t see the episode play out in real time. Relying instead on social media, news bulletins and comments of friend to build a picture of the clambake. One exclamation of note being “F***ing hell, Gaz, you should have seen it! I was brilliant”.
Yours truly hates to be a killjoy or a Davy Downer, however it’s fair to say I was totally underwhelmed by the footage and snaps of the event which was over as quick as a Love Island relationship.
I know people will argue that it’s not the duration of the sun’s eclipse that matters, it’s the rarity of it occurring in the UK which marks it as a must see. Apparently, so far this century Britain has only witnessed thirteen sun blocking events. That being said, I’d be lying if I said anything other than finding the whole topic underwhelming.
I’d proffer my apathy maybe due to my lunar event vacuum losing its suck, however, if truth be told, I’ve never had much interest in all things stellar. Even as as kid, I could recite Don Revie’s Leeds United team well before the knowing which planets formed our solar system… Sprake, Reaney, Cooper, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles and Eddie Gray being of far more interest to me as a boy than Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune… In the early 1970’s Pluto was also classed as a planet, but appears to have at some point been demoted to a dwarf planet.
In 1969, as a six year old boy, I was equally underwhelmed watching Neil Armstrong taking the first Moon walk. Sitting in my grandparents accommodation above their Armley shop, my parents, grandparents, brother Ian and I watched grainy pictures of Armstrong disembark the lunar module and utter the legendary “One small step for man, one giant step for mankind.”
Although in awe at man walking on the Moon, the experience was spoiled by the fact every time a vehicle drove past on Stanningley Road it caused interference to the TV aerial. Consequently, the already grainy monochrome pictures were rendered almost unwatchable as the screen crackled intermittently with distortion. So really what I heard Neil Armstrong say in real time was “One small step for man, one giant step……. cccckcckckckcck”
Anyhow, talking of rare events, today I woke to strange watery drops cascading from the West Yorkshire sky. With the fading memory of a man in his sixties, I seem to recollect this phenomenon also occurring many moons ago. A utopian time when my front lawn wore an emerald green hue, not the current sandy yellow pigment its adorned for months.
Judging from their slightly less parched look since the the downfall began this cloud born gift. I’m informed is called rain, was dewy manna from heaven for my bedding plants and garden shrubs. Although, regularly watered by hosepipe during the drought, I suspect shrubs much prefer this mornings chlorine free tipple.
What played out in front of me for around an hour by no means a deluge, but my word the yard needed this watery intervention. Particularly the aforementioned lawn, which was last hydrated when Keir Starmer was Prime Minister and England mens football team were about to embark on a FIFA World Cup campaign. The World Cup didn’t ‘come home’ but, on the plus side, at least we haven’t had to wait sixty years for the rain to return.
Today’s hour long shower derailing my new early morning routine. An itinerary impacted further by my dog having a ‘sleepover’ with my partner and her granddaughter at her home on the outskirts of Ossett.
Consequently, this Sunday morning there was no 7am dog walk, 8am dog feed, or 8.10am watering of tubs. The only constants in the new routine the consuming of daily meds and eating crumpets smothered in marmite accompanied by a coffee.
Sadly, with my body clock now set to wake at 6.30am due to this routine, I missed an opportunity to take advantage of being bereft of my beagle Bella. Yeah, I attempted to get back to sleep but to no avail; instead spending the next hour playing Mahjong on my phone.
Being home alone also depriving me from indulging in idiosyncratic conversations with my mutt. Scenes playing out while she follows me around the house, or during her walk. Occasions where I play the voices of both characters. Bella’s imagined input delivered in a north east accent similar to that of my uncle George. As he is Welsh and never visited the north east, no one in the family is sure how he came by this dialect.
If Bella could really talk, I’d imagine her binge watching of Ant & Dec on TV would impart her with a similar northern English brogue. Of late, I feel the shows contribute towards my hounds burgeoning mischievous side; leading to pranks like burying my slippers in the garden and hiding my TV remote in her toy basket… Although, as it stands she’s yet to persuade me to open a Santander bank account.
With the recent rainfall softening concrete-like soil, I anticipate Bella will soon recommence her hobby of burying my indoor footwear; a digging of borders recently curtailed due to them transitioning into sun hardened mud.
There’s a poetry to witnessing falling rain on parched ground. This mornings view motivating me to write the following sonnet, enquiring where the rain has been hiding for so long:-
‘Where hast though been morning dew?
At springs denouement you went,
Your departure silent, without vent.
What was the motive of your sojourn.
Behaving like you were to the manor born.
Absence necessitating flora supped chlorine.
Don’t take my word for it, ask aunt Maureen.
Lawn distressed at your enigmatic sabbatical taken.
I’d whinge more, but it’s Sunday and I need my bacon.’
Upon opening my bedroom curtails this morning to see the first precipitation for ages, I was hit by the sound of Annie Lennox’s voice singing “Here comes the rain again. Falling on my head like a memory, falling on my head like a new emotion…” … God knows what the former Eurythmics singer was doing in my wardrobe, but it’s fair to say the episode scared the s**t out of me!!
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