Sunday, 4 March 2007

The Jaffa Cake Story...



Full moon...half moon...total eclipse...! Not influenced by adverts in the slightest (you kind of have to be British to get the reference...and love Jaffa Cakes...and have a weird sense of humour).

The eclipse was pretty amazing even if it was slightly cold outside. Nothing that a big fleece, hat and gloves couldn't stave off - plus a few mugs of fruity tea to warn up. Quite a few friends of mine were watching it so we were texting/calling each other back and forth as it went on. One of my friends had spotted a couple of shooting stars earlier on in the night but I wasn't lucky enough to spot them as well. I do think having Pink Floyd on in the background kind of added to the spectacle - especially when "Dark Side of the Moon" kicked in just as totality hit. Dennis had The Waterboys "Whole of the Moon" playing!

It is one of the things that I'll miss when the house sells as it's been a perfect spot for some amazing night sky revelations. Going back into town means more light pollution which we just manage to avoid at this spot. The Northern Lights a couple of years back were just amazing and the best I'd seen since I left Orkney years ago. At least Dennis has the same sort of interest in watching the skies as I do (though a much better knowledge than I have) and lives in a spot on the edge of Aberdeen which is just outwith the light pollution so we've already sorted it that whenever there's going to be anything cool happening then I can go up there to watch it all with him.

If you put the slideshow on at a fastish rate then you can get that same sort of effect as when you used to draw little stick figures on the corner of your jotter and then flick through them dead fast so it got an animated effect. The photos are hardly astronomy quality but I still think they look pretty cool.

So a good day overall - tickets for Rockness, more gardening done in readiness for house sale and a good view of the lunar eclipse.

Sometimes a mellow move through the day is throughly pleasant.

3 comments:

Ali said...

Lovely pictures indeed! We didn't see it here due to the light pollution and not knowing anything about it happening!
BTW your use of "outwith" made me laugh as I'm always being slagged off here for using it - it's not a proper word but most (English) people agree that it should be! Maybe there should be a campaign to get it into the Oxford English Dictionary?

Maureen said...

Remember - I come from a land where there are words in the local dialect that have absolutely no resemblance to anything in English. Good old Viking heritage. Favourite Orcadian word - "plickoo". See if you can guess what that means.

Riggwelter said...

They are great pictures, it was chucking it down here, so we ate a pack of Jaffa cakes instead.