Weather ... again

[Polarengineer]

Quote (Marvin)
I’ve seen it before, it’s rubbish.

[demi]

What a bunch of cynics!

It's the first solar eclipse I've seen (was in cloudy Scotland in 1999) & I thought it was very impressive.

[Polly]

We sat in the shade at the local park by the football fields intending to move to an open area when the light began to fade - but it never happened; when we decided to wander over the peak has passed! Disappointing.

We saw the 1999 full eclipse from an autoroute aire not far from Amiens and throughly enjoyed the drama and feeling of conviviality; we took chairs, glasses and a bottle of whisky with us and made a toast to celebrate the event.

Of course we weren’t expecting anything like in 1999 but thought it would be a bit special; it was lovely to see so many gathered there though and the water we took with us was pleasantly cool. Not as good as a single malt though - that came later at home.

[Wilbro]

@demi and

As were we in a cottage near Kingussie.

[L Austin France]

We saw the stupendous 1999 eclipse from a perfect headland vantage point overlooking the sea on our local Devon golf course.
Things went dark & birds etc stopped singing. Totally gob smacking experience.
We figured we'd never beat that so gave up here after about a half hour of ....nothing

[exile]

I missed the 1999 event - away on business - but OH stopped at a motorway rest area, while taking a friend back to the airport, and caught the full event.

I did get the glasses and saw bits of it yesterday but found it no more impressive than my first partial eclipse back in the late 50s? No glasses then but the sky was veiled in cloud so looking directly at the sun seemed to offer no danger.

Yesterday's event took place just as the sun was setting behind the forest across the valley, so we lost light a few minutes early but it never reallyrecovered.

[Polarengineer]

Don’t panic if you missed the eclipse, as I quoted, it’s rubbish. If you really want to see the effects of the sun, go to North Norway in winter and watch the daily aurora, that’s really magic.
Has anyone noticed the tidal effect due to the sun and moon cuddling up?

[demi]

I have to vehemently disagree with you, Polarengineer. I don 't know how you can call a natural & rare event rubbish.

[Polarengineer]

Quite right Demi, but a rare event only on a human scale. I am loosing all faith in humanity these days and only perk up when I read of Blaze and the aid extended there.

[Blaze]

@Polarengineer A huge number of people have done what they can to help, whether it's farmers coming with water tanks, people making sandwiches for the pompiers, restaurants helping evacuees ..... The French are extremely generous when it comes to cagnottes to help people who've lost everything and we've seen that in circumstances other than the current problems.