Partial eclipse of the Heart

He really wanted to be there. There being the path of totality of yesterday's eclipse.
I really wanted us to be there, for him.
But life got in the way.
Life seems to too often get in the way.

It made me so sad that he wasn't going to get there.  Not this time.  I shed more than a few tears about it.  He assured me that it was ok.  It wasn't meant to be.  There is another in 2024 and by God we will go to Mexico, or South America or wherever we have to be to see it.

I tried to find eclipse glasses in my neighbourhood (and further afield) but they were all sold out.

Bummer.

Meanwhile.....as I was heading to bed on Sunday night, himself was on a youtube channel about how to make a safe eclipse viewer.

We had the binoculars, the tape, the scissors, and the tripod.

So we set the alarm for 7:30am.  After coffee and breakfast we loaded the above ingredients plus chairs, hats and sun cream into the car.

Our house has too many trees to see the morning sun clearly so we headed to my school's playground.

No-one was there.

So we set up our contraption:

And spent the next two hours watching it unfold.

 Artsy shot - very alien planet with two suns.

 Nature getting in on the act on the wall of the school

 at peak - 88% covered

 nature played along as the moon kept up its journey across the sun's face

It got much cooler, and the colours around us changed as the sky darkened just a little.

For most of the time it was just the two of us sitting side by side - texting with our son one province over, my sister three islands away, and our daughter a continent away sharing our pictures and experiences.

For a brief moment we were all together thanks to a natural phenomenon.

Just after the peak a number of my colleagues came out of a meeting for their coffee break and watched our set-up.  One fellow had the special glasses so my husband and I could get a look at the sun in the sky - it was something else.

But mostly it was a day like many others where we shared an experience, together, alone. Like this:

It was a good day.

And my son, who loves hedgehogs, topped it off with this:

and then this morning I found this for my sister (who loves sea turtles).