Diary of dislocation, day thirty two…

I was lured outside on the last two nights by the promise of the Lyrid meteor shower, a view of Elon Musk’s starlink satellite procession and because outside, is, well, outside. I would rather Space X hadn’t launched dozens, soon to be hundreds of tiny satellites in to low earth orbit, but then we all need our fridge connecting to the internet and the availability of instagram in the middle of the desert. That, of course, or a properly functioning health system, but I think he’s leaving that for Bill Gates, whilst Jeff Bezos bails out the book industry, really…

Three of us managed to get to the shoreline, probably half a mile away from the house, and sat out in the cold cursing some people in a small white car who decided to turn up just as Dylan was re-enacting a near biblical interpretation of pointing at a star. The star being Venus, which is of course a planet.

Astrophotography, a picture of planet Venus.

Unfortunately we were too late for the satellites and perhaps a little early for the meteors, although we saw a number of shooting stars glimpsed between the headlights of the odd on-coming vehicle. It appears there are a few people sneaking around the back routes.

In the end the small white car proved the perfect centre point for a photograph I’m calling ‘small white car at the end of the universe’ not least because I lacked the imagination at the time to come up with anything different, probably the cold weather. I also realised belatedly that I’d nudged the tripod slightly upwards before clicking the exposure, so the car gets a little lost in the frame.

Elsewhere we picked up instead of taking shopping to some sheltering family members who it turned out are considerably more successful at getting supermarket orders than us. We’re relying instead upon some local shops and a newly discovered means of having cider delivered to the door. These were the first trips I’ve been able to make in the last two-three weeks and I was grateful for sight of some bluebells and the pleasure of being outdoors in what is turning out to be an incredible spring in more ways than one.