'MATTHEW!' We shout a lot in our house, it's fine. 'MATTHEW, DO YOU WANT TO WALK TO SIRIUS'S PARK?' Matthew: 'YEAH!'
Sirius's Park is now what we call the little park where we mistook a bench for Sirius Black (link to that post, just in case you missed it, and link to Sirius himself, in case you don't know who he is). It's in Torrisholme, which is about a mile from our house.
On a whim, I wondered if the road would stay clear enough for me to lie in it. It did. But only just.
Venus was very bright tonight. Well, it always is, being a planet that's pretty close to us.
I just happened to be looking up at exactly the right time to see something glide across the sky that definitely wasn't an airplane or a helicopter (i.e. the light wasn't flashing), and I assumed it was the International Space Station. 'Matthew, look! I think it's the ISS', but he missed it and I thought it had gone behind a little cloud. I waited for a minute to see if it would emerge from behind the cloud, but it didn't. Hmmm, odd. We've seen it a few times – once, when we were on a mini holiday in Aberystwyth, it passed right over our heads. It didn't reappear this time, so I got out my Skyguide app to see if I'd been mistaken. I had – Skyguide told me that the ISS was actually somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Here, it's a bit difficult to tell where I was pointing the app, but the hilly-looking dark shapes at the top of this screenshot show you where the horizon is relative to yourself, and the ISS was somewhere under our feet, so on the other side of the world right then. The big ominous-looking nebulous cloud across the bottom left is the Milk Way, which we are obviously in.
I guess what I saw, then, was a meteor. Whatever it was, if I hadn't looked up at the right time, I would've missed it. So that was nice.
Onward. We reached the new road and, because Matthew hasn't been up there for ages, we decided to pop up and have a little look. I would also just like to show you what we've done to Matthew. We've made him blonde. When his purple dye arrives, we will make him purple. He has determined to remain sort of anonymous because he's not ready for fame, yet.
The view from the new road. I've nothing to say about it because you've seen it before and it's still the same.
Twenty minutes later, we were at Sirius's Park. I've taken to just observing things with my eyes rather than the camera because there are only so many pictures of the same things that I can share with you. Also, Matthew and I were very chatty this evening and I just forgot to record our journey in photo form.
Here is the bench that we thought was Sirius Black. Perfect dark and sinister spot for a cup of tea. We almost didn't get to sit here because, just seconds before we reached it, two big and burly blokes loomed out of the darkness and we almost chickened out and ran. But the blokes were no threat at all, smelling very strongly of weed. In fact, they smiled cheerily and said 'evenin''.
Incidentally, over these weeks of walking and writing, I've forgotten to mention that we've smelled that heady whiff of cannabis almost every time we've been out. I suppose it's the perfect way to chill in this uncertain and stressful time.
We sat for some time, not getting high because the weed fumes had disappeared as soon as the blokes had gone, which was good because I don't think my 12-year-old son should be experimenting with drugs. Instead, Matthew has taken to bringing a little sketchbook with him, and he draws a little picture or two while we drink our tea. He doesn't want to share them, sorry. I thought about bringing a sketchbook too, but I prefer to just sit and look at things. Like this willow. It's a guess that it's a willow, but I don't know if any other trees hang in this way. Whatever it is, I think it's lovely.
If we're walking at night, I must make sure we eat first, because the way back was hard going, even though it was only a mile and a half. But a mile and a half on an empty stomach isn't that much fun. We were stuck halfway between wanting to almost run home to eat and not having the energy left to do so. Lesson learned, possibly.
Sign of the times, for posterity:
We stopped long enough on our stumbling way home to look at this little tree again. I've showed it to you before, but someone had added real candles to the display today. Looking around at the houses nearby, I think I spotted the likely maker of this little shrine of hope. There's a house – I didn't photograph it because ... privacy – which is owned by a little old couple. They have fairy lights in their windows and crystal figures on the windowsills, and I think this is their work. How lovely, if it's them, to think that they toddle across the road every evening to switch on the lights and light the candles, just to make a few people smile.
And that was all there was to report. We ate at 10.30pm this evening, because we can.
Until tomorrow, friends.
WQ
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