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How time flies! It doesn't seem long since I was asking people for articles to fill this issue of Aries. It has taken a while but Chris Campbell has produced another of her excellent poems. Jackie and Cathy took a flight to see the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) and Jackie has written about their adventures in the frozen North. There was no 'beginners' article in the previous Aries, for which I apologise, that returns to the fold in this issue.
The memories of the last eclipse of the millennium are still fresh in everyone's mind at the moment, I hope that you had a good view. I did not! We drove up to the North of France from the Alps the day before - a horrendous journey. We could not find a campsite, apart from one that was full so we slept in the car in a services area off the Autoroute. Refreshed (I think not!) we awoke to 100% cloud cover. We travelled as far west as possible and eventually gave up near Metz. At the time of first contact, it began to rain but at least it had stopped a few minutes before totality. There was a tantalising glimpse of the event about 2 minutes prior to totality but unfortunately the eclipse was completely clouded out. It was nevertheless a fascinating experience. It was much darker than expected but that would be largely because of the thick and grey cloud cover. The birds were still flying around during totality and there was a cockerel crowing. The clouds thinned sufficiently after totality for us to see at least some of the partial phase after the event, so we had that as a consolation prize!
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