Solar Eclipse not seen! 25-03-2015

In last 500 years, there have been only eight total solar eclipses visible from the UK. Next one will be in 2026, so I wasn't going to miss my 'Once in a lifetime' chance last Friday, even though at 9.30 in the morning it would disrupt my regular Friday blindfolded session and, as it turned out, also Lucy's fortnightly piano lesson. So, just a little disappointed, I arranged to delay Lucy's visit until later in the morning and didn't blindfold myself at my usual Friday morning time of eight o/clock, once I know husband is safely on his train into his London office. I sat then waiting for the eclipse to start, colander an a piece of paper to hand (colander, for you people overseas perhaps!? is a stell saucepan-sized kitchen strainer – a bowl with lots of round holes) with which you can project images of the eclipsing sun through the holes onto a piece of paper.

But at 9.00 it was grey and cloudy, so thick that during the time of the eclipse it didn't even darken and, as for the birds which are supposed to stop singing and return to ttheir nests, there were none singing in the first place. Very diasppointing to those of us in the South-East of England, except curiously enough, the cloud did break up over Ashdown Forest – highish moorland not far away and the very place where I didn't see the visiting eagle when my bird-watching friend took me up there last summer. See previous blog.

Well then, I did manage to blindfold myself before Lucy arrived for her own blindfolded visit and we did spend time commisserating on the lack of seeing anything of the eclipse.

But then of course, blindfolded as we were, we were both happily eclipsed in the end!

Thanks for your recent comments, Accro delajupe and 'eyes.patched' I'll get back to those after Easter now,

Happy Easter,

Jane.